We need an admin to control VA

[Peter Holmes]

Rather reminiscent, in fact, of the more-than-7-year-long obsessive, relentless (and yes, at times angry) witch hunt Peter Holmes has been conducting against anyone who is more or less a moral realist. This despite the fact that in the 2020 Philpapers survey, out of 1718 professional philosophers, 62% were moral realists and only 26% moral anti-realists (https://philpapers.org/archive/BOUPOP-3.pdf). Ponder that fact, amateur subjectivists. Should we say that Peter's witch hunt, too, borders on insanity? Or does Peter get a free pass because most of the people here are subjectivists like him?

I've been tackling an argument, not conducting a witch hunt. And if, sometimes, I got angry - which I regret - it was usually in response to abuse from people who called me a philosophical gnat or a 'dumb ****'.

If you (CIN) or anyone else has a valid and sound argument for moral objectivism, then here's a place to present it for others to assess and respond if we want to. You could try recycling the argument of one of the 62%, and see how it fares. After all, evidence and argument are what matter.

Don't lie, as I noted, no one had labeled you a gnat.

I often use the term 'gnat' but have never directed that at you because so far you are decent [with minor exceptions]; our discussion has been amicable, except to critique your narrow and shallow philosophical thinking.

Just a suggestion. Let's at least you and I cut out the abuse, and stick to relevant assertions and arguments. For example, your saying my philosophical thinking is shallow and dogmatic is abusive, and doesn't further the argument. Anyway, I'm going to ask myself: what's the purpose of this sentence I'm about to write?

[Iwannaplato]

Don't lie, as I noted, no one had labeled you a gnat.

Directed at Peter Holmes

Veritas: It is more like you do not have the philosophical competence to counter my points and being aware you are stuck in a quandary.
As I had always been accusing you of being a philosophical gnat with shallow, narrow and dogmatic thinking.

From here:
viewtopic.php?p=637900#p637900

You are too ignorant and arrogant with your counters and views above [based merely from hearsays from Hume, a mixed of analytic philosophers] and you're a gnat and so kindergartenish in philosophy as evident by your lack of references to any authority in all your counters and views.

viewtopic.php?p=582255#p582255

Your above is the claim from a philosophical gnat.

viewtopic.php?p=485822#p485822

And so on. Could this possibly be acknowledged?

And if, somehow, meant he'd never called CIN a philosophical gnat, that also is not true.

[Iwannaplato]

I've been tackling an argument, not conducting a witch hunt. And if, sometimes, I got angry - which I regret - it was usually in response to abuse from people who called me a philosophical gnat or a 'dumb ****'.

If you (CIN) or anyone else has a valid and sound argument for moral objectivism, then here's a place to present it for others to assess and respond if we want to. You could try recycling the argument of one of the 62%, and see how it fares. After all, evidence and argument are what matter.

Don't lie, as I noted, no one had labeled you a gnat.

I often use the term 'gnat' but have never directed that at you because so far you are decent [with minor exceptions]; our discussion has been amicable, except to critique your narrow and shallow philosophical thinking.

Just a suggestion. Let's at least you and I cut out the abuse, and stick to relevant assertions and arguments. For example, your saying my philosophical thinking is shallow and dogmatic is abusive, and doesn't further the argument. Anyway, I'm going to ask myself: what's the purpose of this sentence I'm about to write?

That's a lovely suggestion, though it will not address the proliferation of threads. I once suggested that some of us simply stop responding to VA and you, very kindly, thought that this might not be fair to him. But if the concern is the proliferation of threads, it seems to me that if the main critics stop responding, he has less need for the calling out PH, FDP and Atla threads. And also many of the OP directly carry over from a point made by one of us. He finds what he thinks is a solution and so starts a new thread instead of responding in thread. I'm saying this openly, so perhaps he'll perversely find other reasons to start the same number of threads, but I see no real loss in giving this a shot. The mods aren't going to do anything, so......

And note: after all your discussion with him, he has said clearly here in the thread that he has squashed all your arguments.

I will unilaterally ignore VA for the rest of the month. I hope you and Atla and FDP join in.

[FlashDangerpants]

Putting VA on my ignore list doesn't fix anything. I can ignore people like and Age and Skepdick by just not bothering to read their posts, but I can't filter out all of VA's spam threads because those are still filling up the page and choking out all other conversation, which is his cynical tactic.

[Iwannaplato]

Putting VA on my ignore list doesn't fix anything. I can ignore people like and Age and Skepdick by just not bothering to read their posts, but I can't filter out all of VA's spam threads because those are still filling up the page and choking out all other conversation, which is his cynical tactic.

But, again, many of his threads are 1) directed specifically at you, Peter and Atla, with me often mentioned secondarily. They are calling out threads or specifically going at something one of us said in another thread. So, one motivation for proliferation is gone. 2) There are not that many people that respond to him. Of course he can post away and he can perversely just start new threads upon reading my suggestion, but I still think there would be a reduction.

3) What's the effective alternative? The mods clearly aren't interested.

4) And what is the point of responding? He states here that he has squashed all our arguments. I don't think many other people are interested in what he focuses on. We're interested but critical of arguments and positions. Others, not much. Are we concerned his threads will seem truer or better argued if they are ignored?

[FlashDangerpants]

I will unilaterally ignore VA for the rest of the month. I hope you and Atla and FDP join in.

I guess I can join that club. I may as well get round to finishing up my epic better-than-morality-proper-KFC-bucket and see if he is able to strangle it as quickly as he drowned the first couple of installments.

[mickthinks]

So like you only engaded him 3 times instead of 10-20? Someone should document this unprecedented act of self-restraint.

Ah, you are employing irony to fudge the missing premises in your argument. There's no suggestion my restraint has been unprecedented, merely that I have been able to exercise it enough to not need any official censorship of VA.

[Atla]

I will unilaterally ignore VA for the rest of the month. I hope you and Atla and FDP join in.

Okay, in fact I'll ignore him permanently from now on, not just for a month. I don't care either way anyway, since this forum already died some 4 years ago exactly because of the likes of VA, and I only come here for fun anymore.

I had my own philosophical debate with VA in our first few exchanges in about 2018, he lost badly, everything since then was just curiosity how and why he imagines that he's the one who has squashed my position. I don't think he ever won a single argument.

But I'm thankful to him because now I have a better understanding of Kant (not actually thanks to VA but because I had to do some research), and realized that Kant was more wrong than I imagined. VA still has no idea what Kant actually said tho.

Anyway, ignoring him will only hurt him, not us. It was actually an act of kindness that we tried to explain his many mistakes to him. Now no one will listen to his world changing theories that will lead humanity to a new golden age. Will he be able to handle the lack of attention?

[Iwannaplato]

Anyway, ignoring him will only hurt him, not us.

And if we want to probe the potential awareness of incredibly stubborn people who can't admit they've made even small mistakes, well, the pickin's are good and none of them floods the forum with threads like VA. Yes, I think it's his loss. I also liked the fact that he brought up some less likely to appear positions. Though it would have been even more interesting if he could actually engage with other posters, rather than squashing them by repeating himself and not really responding to them.

It was actually an act of kindness that we tried to explain his many mistakes to him. Now no one will listen to his world changing theories that will lead humanity to a new golden age. Will he be able to handle the lack of attention?

Well, it's an experiment.

[Atla]

So like you only engaded him 3 times instead of 10-20? Someone should document this unprecedented act of self-restraint.

Ah, you are employing irony to fudge the missing premises in your argument. There's no suggestion my restraint has been unprecedented, merely that I have been able to exercise it enough to not need any official censorship of VA.

What censorship. VA can write whatever he wants and can ad hom as much as he wants, who cares? I said that VA shouldn't be allowed to flood the forum with hundreds of threads that are the repetitions of 5-10 topics max.

[Iwannaplato]

So like you only engaded him 3 times instead of 10-20? Someone should document this unprecedented act of self-restraint.

Ah, you are employing irony to fudge the missing premises in your argument. There's no suggestion my restraint has been unprecedented, merely that I have been able to exercise it enough to not need any official censorship of VA.

What censorship. VA can write whatever he wants and can ad hom as much as he wants, who cares? I said that VA shouldn't be allowed to flood the forum with hundreds of threads that are the repetitions of 5-10 topics max.

You don't understand, Atla, that's the Putin censorship, streamlining threads. Much more pernicious than restricting what he writes. You don't want to live under Putin do you? IOW don't be like Putin. Not Putin, noooooooooo!!

[CIN]

Also, I'd like to point out that VA has organized a 5-or-so-year-long, angry, obsessive, relentless witch hunt against anyone here who is more or less a "philosophical realist". It borders on insanity.

Rather reminiscent, in fact, of the more-than-7-year-long obsessive, relentless (and yes, at times angry) witch hunt Peter Holmes has been conducting against anyone who is more or less a moral realist. This despite the fact that in the 2020 Philpapers survey, out of 1718 professional philosophers, 62% were moral realists and only 26% moral anti-realists (https://philpapers.org/archive/BOUPOP-3.pdf). Ponder that fact, amateur subjectivists. Should we say that Peter's witch hunt, too, borders on insanity? Or does Peter get a free pass because most of the people here are subjectivists like him?

I've been tackling an argument, not conducting a witch hunt. And if, sometimes, I got angry - which I regret - it was usually in response to abuse from people who called me a philosophical gnat or a 'dumb ****'.

If you (CIN) or anyone else has a valid and sound argument for moral objectivism, then here's a place to present it for others to assess and respond if we want to. You could try recycling the argument of one of the 62%, and see how it fares. After all, evidence and argument are what matter.

No, of course you haven't been conducting a witch hunt, Peter. I don't think VA has either. (Does it matter if he has? He can't actually burn anyone at the stake.) He does post too much, but there are worse vices (like trying to shut people down merely because you don't agree with their posts and you're put to the inconvenience of having to scroll past their stuff to find what you're interested in). VA really seems to have got under FDP's skin by saying he had a cognitive deficit. Well, and so what? I've had worse things said to me, and so have you. If you haven't got a thick skin, don't come here. There's a lot of testosterone floating about in this forum (where are all the women?). This is not a forum for maiden aunts.

I may come back to you about future discussions, but not right now. I have some reading to do first.

[promethean75]

"There's a lot of testosterone floating about in this forum (where are all the women?)"

U might not believe this but back in the early 2000s every forum i posted at (maybe three) had a relatively high number of intelligent female hotty philosophettes posting at any given time. I know that doesn't sound right but it's true. Usually college students, which explains it. My theory is that the number of female sexy beast philosophers has drastically dropped in the last twenty yearz, reflecting a general decline in female intellectualism becuz of distracting social media venues that draw their attention.

Also, college aged female sexy beast philosophers usually prefer their peer group be in the same age range. Take PN's Astro Cat. U guys remember her. That was a legit college aged female sexy beast philosopher. Chances are she lost interest becuz of the general participant age here and the lack of energy. That and the autists, religious zealots and pervs.

So now imagine like three or four astro cats going analytical ham in a thread about Popper and democracy. That's a philosophy forum u wanna be at. And that's how it once was a long, long time ago.

Today, however, the forum female member genre is normally introvert cat lady or normal middle aged female. Not gorgeous but not digusting. Has no real talents or skills. Average IQ. Works the nine to five or is a married house wife. Experience with philosophy consists of forty minutes at the wiki article on philosophy after reading something mentioning philosophy in a reader's digest that moved them. U know just normal decent unremarkable women who make good life partners. And that's fine.

Of course all this could be nonsense and a) more members are hot females than we imagine there are and b) they're just not posting pictures.

[FlashDangerpants]

I will unilaterally ignore VA for the rest of the month. I hope you and Atla and FDP join in.

I... I think VA might be retaliating by going on some sort of philosophy strike?

[Iwannaplato]

I will unilaterally ignore VA for the rest of the month. I hope you and Atla and FDP join in.

I... I think VA might be retaliating by going on some sort of philosophy strike?

Oh, don't throw me in the brier patch VA, no!
Anyway, he can't just repeat his positions without any reason. I think a large number of his 'responses' to people's posts are repetition/re-paraphrasing of his positions without really engaging with other people's posts. I don't think he's every really had to do that, academically or otherwise. But it more or less looks normal to see a pot with quotes and some kind of response. But what's the reason for just re-paraphrasing his op if there are no responses? Why start a new thread on the same topic if no one responded?

I figure also a moratorium makes it clear to VA in a different way what it means to have even critical interest in what he posts.
And we have a chance to mull over what draws us to keep responding to someone who doesn't quite respond back to what we say. Who doesn't quite know how to integrate criticism into a response to that criticism.

What's the attraction?

I think we all understand the attraction to doing this the first 10 times. But after 150 not quite responses, what's in it for us?

Perhaps a month break (or more) will make this all clearer.

Like the couple that is always complaining about the other half. Why not just break up?

We can't be concerned about VA, without our noble efforts, becoming an influence in the world.