[ExI] A 'libertarian' solution to political bullshit on this list?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 12:16 PM Will Steinberg
<steinberg.will at gmail.com> wrote:
> Long post.  TL;DR: the constituents of this list must take an active stance in avoiding bullshit posts and threads.

It is ultimately the responsibility of the administrators of any given
forum, to prune away objectionable behavior and keep the community
running smoothly.

What little I have tried, seems to have had little effect.

> 3) Whenever politics seep into a non-political thread, the next poster should immediately fork the thread into a [POLITICS] version and version that is not tainted.  (I will start doing this immediately)
>
> 4) Absolute refusal to discuss politic in threads that are not affixed with [POLITICS].  Even though this is drastic, and should not be forever, it is necessary medicine for this cancer.

What to do with members who refuse to comply?  Because that has been
the core of the problem: people inject politics and act as if their
politics is still on the original topic, when most of us do not agree.

> Do you have a reason to justify scaring geniuses away from a list that has the potential to solve grave world problems, many of which you complain about?

I have noticed that many political partisans will sacrifice any and
every thing, not caring of or considering that there could be long
term damage, for the potential of short term gain.

> Where is Anders?  Damien?  Stefano?  Samantha?  Eugen?  Jeff?  Stathis?  Adrian?  Where is Max?  Where is the list?

I am honored to be on that list.

> A runner-up to said bullshit is refusing to find middle ground and opposing anything and everything an ideological 'enemy' (such as Trump) says, even if it's something you agree with at your core.

That fallacy used to be known as reductio ad hitlerium.  It still
applies, though the current incarnation is reductio ad trumpium.

Politics is like that.  Even the most evil person can still do some
good, if perhaps only by accident.  (Even Hitler was capable of
befriending dogs.)  Likewise, even the purest saint will slip up and
do evil now and then - the difference being, the saint will at least
recognize the evil (or can recognize it, once it has been clearly
pointed out) and try to make up for it if practical.

I am reminded of that Amazon resume filter that started biasing
against women, for what turned out to be be of the same reasons the
bias got established in human resume reviewers: lack of familiarity
with resumes from women, and a bias toward rejecting anything
significantly different from the trained (primarily male) previously
accepted set because the point of the system was to identify the
resumes most similar to the previously accepted ones.  Once that bias
is known, it can be deliberately addressed, e.g. by finding out the
elements in acceptable resumes from women that the system flags and
removing those flags (which process applies whether the reviewer is AI
or human, even if the details of the process differ).