I complained at the time about you substituting a word definition without acknowledging it, which I think you’re doing again here.
Bloom specifically used the phrase “Platonic ideal Art of Discourse”! When someone talks about Platonic ideals of discourse, I think it’s a pretty reasonable reading on my part to infer that they’re talking about simple principles of ideal reasoning with wide interpersonal appeal, like the laws of probability theory, or “Clarifying questions aren’t attacks”, or “A debate in which one side gets unlimited time, but the other side is only allowed to speak three times, isn’t fair”, or “When you identify a concern as your ‘actual crux’, and someone very clearly addresses it, you should either change your mind or admit that it wasn’t a crux”—not there merely being a fact of the matter as to what option is best with respect to some in-principle-specifiable utility function when faced with a complicated, messy empirical policy trade-off (as when deciding when and how to use multiple types of conversations that optimize for different truth-tracking strategies), which is trivial.
If Bloom meant something else by “Platonic ideal Art of Discourse”, he’s welcome to clarify. I charitably assumed the intended meaning was something more substantive than, “The mods are trying to do what we personally think is good, and whatever we personally think is good is a Platonic ideal”, which is vacuous.
That is, from your own statements, it sure looks like your rationale for restricting Achmiz’s speech is not about him violating any principles of ideal discourse that you can clearly describe (and could therefore make neutrally-enforced rules about, and have an ontology such that some complaints are invalid) but rather that some people happen to dislike Achmiz’s writing style, and you’re worried about those people not using your website. (I’m not confident you’ll agree with that characterization, but it seems accurate to me; if you think I’m misreading the situation, you’re welcome to explain why.)
As amusing as it would be to see you try, I should hope you’re not going to seriously defend “But then fewer people would use our website” as a Platonic ideal of good discourse?!
I’ve heard that some people on this website don’t like Holocaust allusions, but frankly, you’re acting like the property owner of a gated community trying to court wealthy but anti-Semetic potential tenants by imposing restrictions on existing Jewish tenants. You’re sensitive to the fact that this plan has costs, and you’re willing to consider mitigating those costs by probably building something that lets people Opt Into More Jews, but you’re not willing to consider that the complaints of the rich people you’re trying to attract are invalid on account of the Jewish tenants not doing anything legibly bad (that you could make a neutrally-enforced rule against), because you have a different ontology here.
If you object to this analogy, I think you should be able explain what, specifically, you think the relevant differences are between people who don’t want to share a gated compound with Jews (despite the fact that they’re free to not invite Jews to dinner parties at their own condos), and people who don’t want share a website with Said Achmiz (despite the fact that they’re free to ban Achmiz from commenting on their own posts). I think it’s a great analogy—right down to the detail of Jews being famous for asking annoying questions.
Bloom specifically used the phrase “Platonic ideal Art of Discourse”! When someone talks about Platonic ideals of discourse, I think it’s a pretty reasonable reading on my part to infer that they’re talking about simple principles of ideal reasoning with wide interpersonal appeal, like the laws of probability theory, or “Clarifying questions aren’t attacks”, or “A debate in which one side gets unlimited time, but the other side is only allowed to speak three times, isn’t fair”, or “When you identify a concern as your ‘actual crux’, and someone very clearly addresses it, you should either change your mind or admit that it wasn’t a crux”—not there merely being a fact of the matter as to what option is best with respect to some in-principle-specifiable utility function when faced with a complicated, messy empirical policy trade-off (as when deciding when and how to use multiple types of conversations that optimize for different truth-tracking strategies), which is trivial.
If Bloom meant something else by “Platonic ideal Art of Discourse”, he’s welcome to clarify. I charitably assumed the intended meaning was something more substantive than, “The mods are trying to do what we personally think is good, and whatever we personally think is good is a Platonic ideal”, which is vacuous.
This is germane because when I look at recent moderator actions, the claim that the mod team is trying to be accountable to simple principles of ideal reasoning with wide interpersonal appeal is farcical. You specifically listed limiting Said Achmiz’s speech as a prerequisite “next step” for courting potential users to the site. When asked whether the handful of user complaints against Achmiz were valid, you replied that you had “a different ontology here”.
That is, from your own statements, it sure looks like your rationale for restricting Achmiz’s speech is not about him violating any principles of ideal discourse that you can clearly describe (and could therefore make neutrally-enforced rules about, and have an ontology such that some complaints are invalid) but rather that some people happen to dislike Achmiz’s writing style, and you’re worried about those people not using your website. (I’m not confident you’ll agree with that characterization, but it seems accurate to me; if you think I’m misreading the situation, you’re welcome to explain why.)
As amusing as it would be to see you try, I should hope you’re not going to seriously defend “But then fewer people would use our website” as a Platonic ideal of good discourse?!
(I would have hoped that I wouldn’t need to explain this, but to be clear, the problem with “But then fewer people would use our website” as moderation policy is that it systematically sides with popularity over correctness—deciding arguments based on the relative social power of their proponents and detractors, rather than the intellectual merits.)
I’ve heard that some people on this website don’t like Holocaust allusions, but frankly, you’re acting like the property owner of a gated community trying to court wealthy but anti-Semetic potential tenants by imposing restrictions on existing Jewish tenants. You’re sensitive to the fact that this plan has costs, and you’re willing to consider mitigating those costs by probably building something that lets people Opt Into More Jews, but you’re not willing to consider that the complaints of the rich people you’re trying to attract are invalid on account of the Jewish tenants not doing anything legibly bad (that you could make a neutrally-enforced rule against), because you have a different ontology here.
If you object to this analogy, I think you should be able explain what, specifically, you think the relevant differences are between people who don’t want to share a gated compound with Jews (despite the fact that they’re free to not invite Jews to dinner parties at their own condos), and people who don’t want share a website with Said Achmiz (despite the fact that they’re free to ban Achmiz from commenting on their own posts). I think it’s a great analogy—right down to the detail of Jews being famous for asking annoying questions.