[extropy-chat] Robert, please shut up!

Chris Phoenix cphoenix at CRNano.org
Tue Jun 29 00:11:33 UTC 2004


Robert Bradbury wrote:
> In my reading of the messages so far,
> I think Steve may be the only person who really
> tried to look at the results/ethics of my suggestion
> and point out why it would not work (and therefore
> would be morally wrong).

I also pointed out why it wouldn't work: because it would create 
martyrs, and because a vanished symbol can be more powerful than a 
physical one.  At the time, that was my best contribution to the thread: 
to show that Robert had overlooked something so important and obvious 
that his error should discredit his opinion.

I also discussed it privately, trying to show Robert errors at a couple 
of different levels.

> I look at
> the value of a human with say an MD/PhD medical researcher
> in Western country and compare them with women ... 

And now, my best contribution is to resort to a very uncharacteristic 
level of public abuse, in hopes of shocking Robert enough to convince 
him he should SHUT UP until he learns how to communicate.

Robert, how abjectly ignorant and unskilled are you, not to know that 
rating women less than men is uncivil and is guaranteed to be 
counterproductive?  This was a very destructive thing for you to write. 
  And it did no good whatsoever.  Not even the smallest little bit of 
good.  We can argue back and forth about whether unpopular or disgusting 
ideas should be allowed on the list.  But there's no excuse for wanton 
destruction.

I know you're smarter than this on other topics.  You even express 
yourself well, on other topics.  I can't imagine why this topic 
short-circuits your brain to the extent that it obviously does.

In fact, maybe I can convince the list owners/moderators that if you 
doesn't know enough to take good advice and shut up, it would not be 
censorship for them to make that decision for you.

Distasteful posts are one thing, and uncivil posts are another.  You 
have been blatantly uncivil.  And preventing uncivil posts is not 
censorship.  The only question is whether there's anything worthwhile 
that might be lost if you weren't allowed to post this idea for a fifth 
time.  Since you didn't listen to my martyrdom criticism when I posted 
it after your third posting of the idea--you didn't even give me credit 
for having made it--I don't think there's any point in letting you post 
your idea yet again.

Chris




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