ObjectivismOnline Objectivist Opposes Objectivism!

[Jonathan]

I was just over yonder, ruminating on whether I should bother replying to a tedious Hickman post (directed at me), when I noticed that 'ruveyn1' has been banned! Who was that, and why should OLers care? Well, it was really obvious to anyone who's spent time in Rand-land that ruveyn1 was our very own Bob Kolker, aka Ba'al Chatzaf. As I recall he reported having been banned before, so I'm curious if he got the boot simply for signing on again under a different name, or if he posted something that offended the powers/moderators that be.

C'mon Bob, inquiring minds want to know!

It's interesting that ruveyn1's name is no longer clickable, and therefore his content is no longer searchable. I didn't realize that that happened when someone was banned.

Hopefully someday Objectivists will control all online forums and be able to ban dissent everywhere. That appears to the common goal of almost all Objectivists other than MSK, so best of luck to them with their chosen method of outreach!

J

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

It's interesting that ruveyn1's name is no longer clickable, and therefore his content is no longer searchable. I didn't realize that that happened when someone was banned.

Jonathan,

Sure it is. Copy/paste the following (exactly as I wrote it) into a Google search:

ruveyn1 site:forum.objectivismonline.com

I get 438 search results on Google. From each search result, you can go to the post on the forum.

Michael

[Newberry]

Rand did inject moral judgments into her theory of aesthetics when she analyzed the "sense of life" that a work of art supposedly projects. But she also distinguished this evaluation from the technical execution of a work of art. In this latter sense, we can have "good" art that exhibits a crappy sense of life.

Good summary. Do you think Ella Fitzgerald with Billie Holiday project sense of life? I am thinking of Blue Skies by Ella, it feels to me to be one of the most optimistic songs I have ever heard. And I am not sure of the song, but Billie sings one about how perfect her man is, and how well he treats her, but in her interpretation I swear she gets beaten by him - amazing way of conveying the opposite of the lyrics.

[zantonavitch]

More Objectivist nanny lunacy at OO:

A few of the anonymous moderators over there have been having fits again recently about my participation. One moderator, "softwareNerd," posted his opinion that "libertarianism does not have much of an underlying philosophy." I asked him which works by which libertarian philosophers he has read, and my doing so apparently really pissed off members of the anonymous moderating team.

I was told that my post was "not on topic," and therefore in violation of the forum rules. Your read that right: after a moderator brought up the topic of libertarianism not having much of an underlying philosophy, I was publicly warned of having strayed off topic when I responded to a topic of his choosing which received no such warning!

It gets better. In discussing the issue further, I received warnings, from "SapereAude," a moderator who was participating in the discussion with me, that she would not tolerate my further breaking of the forum's rules.

Her judgment of my participation seemed to be quite emotional, irrational and exaggerated. She seemed to be taking everything too personally and as an "attack." So I politely suggested that I thought it would be a good policy at OO that moderators should not be acting as moderators on threads on which they are participating. They shouldn't have the power to delete discussion opponents' posts, but that such actions should be left up to neutral moderators.

She responded by saying, publicly, "I do not take moderator action when I am personally engaged in an argument."

She then proceeded to immediately remove my next post from the thread! She removed it so quickly that I thought it was a software glitch and I reposted it, only to have her remove it again just as quickly. She removed both so quickly that she could not possibly have had time to read the post in its entirety and comprehend and weigh the arguments and evidence that I had provided (in my post, I provided a link to this OL thread -- the one that you're currently reading -- as a typical documented example of how my posts have been removed by moderators at OO despite their not containing anything offensive, insulting, impolite or untrue, and despite the fact that they accurately present and defend Rand's views).

Then she sent me a private message in which she tried to rationalize her action and claim that it didn't technically count as her taking a moderator action on a thread on which she was participating! She explained that she only removed my post from the thread, but that she didn't delete it. It still existed, somewhere, and she would leave the decision to delete it to another moderator! She believed that her moderator action of merely "removing" my post didn't qualify as a moderator action!

When I pointed out the dishonesty and faking of reality of her position, she stated that she was tired of listening to my crazy talk.

Remember that we're talking about a person who professes to believe in and practice Objectivism, a philosophy which focuses on honesty, adherence to reality, etc.

This is the current and future face of Objectivist activism.

J

They've banned me to death over there. Their main technique -- since I'm relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated -- is to avoid an honest ban, and merely "moderate" all of my posts. They maliciously make me wait many days or even weeks before allowing something thru. And once under "moderation" -- by censors with only the tiniest amount of my intelligence, knowledge, virtue, spirit, human quality, and loyalty to Objectivism -- only the most innocuous and brief of my posts pass muster. Maybe 20%. But it's beyond hopeless to try to "reason" with them, or to waste time documenting what Jonathan correctly calls their "lunacy".

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... I'm relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated...

Kyrel,

That's a good word, "understated."

Michael

[zantonavitch]

Michael -- I self-censor as much as possible over there. But at some point my idea gets lost -- the question or comment becomes so anodyne as to become meaningless. So I have to give at least a hint of what I mean, or why participate? But the pretenders, insects, monsters, and vermin over there relentlessly censor anyone or anything good. Even the tiniest hint of truth, virtue, or authentic Objectivism sets off their cultist alarm bells. So they "moderate" me right away. 4AynRandFans is even worse. Any real live Howard Roark, Francisco d'Anconia, or thirty-year-old Ayn Rand would hate their guts and refuse to participate.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

But the pretenders, insects, monsters, and vermin over there relentlessly censor anyone or anything good. Even the tiniest hint of truth, virtue, or authentic Objectivism sets off their cultist alarm bells.

Kyrel,

I wonder how that would read if you were not biting your tongue... were not "relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated..."

(Just funnin' )

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

More Objectivist nanny lunacy at OO:

A few of the anonymous moderators over there have been having fits again recently about my participation. One moderator, "softwareNerd," posted his opinion that "libertarianism does not have much of an underlying philosophy." I asked him which works by which libertarian philosophers he has read, and my doing so apparently really pissed off members of the anonymous moderating team.

I was told that my post was "not on topic," and therefore in violation of the forum rules. Your read that right: after a moderator brought up the topic of libertarianism not having much of an underlying philosophy, I was publicly warned of having strayed off topic when I responded to a topic of his choosing which received no such warning!

It gets better. In discussing the issue further, I received warnings, from "SapereAude," a moderator who was participating in the discussion with me, that she would not tolerate my further breaking of the forum's rules.

Her judgment of my participation seemed to be quite emotional, irrational and exaggerated. She seemed to be taking everything too personally and as an "attack." So I politely suggested that I thought it would be a good policy at OO that moderators should not be acting as moderators on threads on which they are participating. They shouldn't have the power to delete discussion opponents' posts, but that such actions should be left up to neutral moderators.

She responded by saying, publicly, "I do not take moderator action when I am personally engaged in an argument."

She then proceeded to immediately remove my next post from the thread! She removed it so quickly that I thought it was a software glitch and I reposted it, only to have her remove it again just as quickly. She removed both so quickly that she could not possibly have had time to read the post in its entirety and comprehend and weigh the arguments and evidence that I had provided (in my post, I provided a link to this OL thread -- the one that you're currently reading -- as a typical documented example of how my posts have been removed by moderators at OO despite their not containing anything offensive, insulting, impolite or untrue, and despite the fact that they accurately present and defend Rand's views).

Then she sent me a private message in which she tried to rationalize her action and claim that it didn't technically count as her taking a moderator action on a thread on which she was participating! She explained that she only removed my post from the thread, but that she didn't delete it. It still existed, somewhere, and she would leave the decision to delete it to another moderator! She believed that her moderator action of merely "removing" my post didn't qualify as a moderator action!

When I pointed out the dishonesty and faking of reality of her position, she stated that she was tired of listening to my crazy talk.

Remember that we're talking about a person who professes to believe in and practice Objectivism, a philosophy which focuses on honesty, adherence to reality, etc.

This is the current and future face of Objectivist activism.

J

They've banned me to death over there. Their main technique -- since I'm relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated -- is to avoid an honest ban, and merely "moderate" all of my posts. They maliciously make me wait many days or even weeks before allowing something thru. And once under "moderation" -- by censors with only the tiniest amount of my intelligence, knowledge, virtue, spirit, human quality, and loyalty to Objectivism -- only the most innocuous and brief of my posts pass muster. Maybe 20%. But it's beyond hopeless to try to "reason" with them, or to waste time documenting what Jonathan correctly calls their "lunacy".

Hard to believe people are so crazy stupid. But if I went there I might have less difficulty. Objectivism in action is driving people away from Objectivism leaving behind the dregs on dreg Internet sites. This has been going on since the 1960s. The primary responsibility belonged to Branden-Rand then Rand then Peikoff with Harry Binswanger making noise from the sidelines. Soon, to officially become an Objectivist, you must take an IQ test and if yours is higher than 89 you will be proactively liquidated as not being a friend of Objectivism.

--Brant

[zantonavitch]

Michael -- I'm understated everywhere, compared to what I really think, and want to say.

[zantonavitch]

Objectivism in action is driving people away from Objectivism leaving behind the dregs on dreg Internet sites. This has been going on since the 1960s. The primary responsibility belonged to Branden-Rand then Rand then Peikoff with Harry Binswanger making noise from the sidelines.

The roots of Randroidism and cultism belong to Ayn Rand herself. She and Nathaniel Branden got it started. Rand unjustly excommunicated many good people who were truly loyal to her personally and intellectually. But they showed occasional loyalty to their own individuality, ideas, and happiness. Thus as a partial non-zombie they were summarily tossed out. This still happens at ObjectivsmOnLine.Net and 4AynRand fans.com. Banning and censorship is very normal in the ARI/religioso part of the world.

[Jonathan]

They've banned me to death over there. Their main technique -- since I'm relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated -- is to avoid an honest ban, and merely "moderate" all of my posts. They maliciously make me wait many days or even weeks before allowing something thru. And once under "moderation" -- by censors with only the tiniest amount of my intelligence, knowledge, virtue, spirit, human quality, and loyalty to Objectivism -- only the most innocuous and brief of my posts pass muster. Maybe 20%. But it's beyond hopeless to try to "reason" with them, or to waste time documenting what Jonathan correctly calls their "lunacy".

A couple of the moderators over there are pretty cool. The rest are very uptight, dumb kids who became moderators so that they could shut down conversations in which they couldn't hold their own intellectually. It's fun to tweak them and laugh at them.

J

[George H. Smith]

They've banned me to death over there. Their main technique -- since I'm relentlessly polite, thoughtful, and understated -- is to avoid an honest ban, and merely "moderate" all of my posts. They maliciously make me wait many days or even weeks before allowing something thru. And once under "moderation" -- by censors with only the tiniest amount of my intelligence, knowledge, virtue, spirit, human quality, and loyalty to Objectivism -- only the most innocuous and brief of my posts pass muster. Maybe 20%. But it's beyond hopeless to try to "reason" with them, or to waste time documenting what Jonathan correctly calls their "lunacy".

A couple of the moderators over there are pretty cool. The rest are very uptight, dumb kids who became moderators so that they could shut down conversations in which they couldn't hold their own intellectually. It's fun to tweak them and laugh at them.

J

I was wondering why anyone would bother with that group of morons. Well, annoying them is a pretty good reason.

Ghs