Posts by Stephen Judd
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And yet James I live in a country, 86% Muslim which has an almost negligible rate of domestic abuse. Indonesia, ...
And we mustn't forget that since Simon lives there, he must be absolutely correct, irrespective of anything you have heard to the contrary.
:)
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Although the behaviour David was originally talking about goes way beyond trolling into scary dangerous stalker loon stuff.
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PS: please note I didn't use the terms "Xtians" or "bible-basher", 'cause I'm a polite and respectful person. Like most atheists :)
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You said:
"Islam needs to go through some kind of change or modernization, but Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of Allah and cannot be altered or reinterpreted in any way."
And I pointed out that the very same thing is true of a group of Christians on your doorstep.
And you responded: the atheists didn't come to NOLA! Those Christians are great!
Which is a big fat non sequitur as far as I'm concerned.
Dude, the fact that fundamentalists are charitable is neat! But it isn't relevant to the point I thought you were trying to make, ie that there is some unique badness in Islam owing to Muslim literalism. Belief in inerrant scripture is a very Christian thing, and you have to admit that.
If you must derail in this way, allow me to point out that as well as being marvellous volunteers, those same groups are trying to wreck the education system, deny women their reproductive freedom, persecute homosexuals and other perceived deviants, and destroy the separation of church and state. Those are not benign goals. But we digress.
Your dig at atheists is irrelevant and gratuitous. But firstly, there are no organised groups of atheists, as you tacitly admit when constructing your straw men - this is because, being, you know, godless, we don't need them. I'm not sure what you can prove by the non-activities of non-existent organisations. And secondly, since most atheists don't feel impelled to witness like Christians or make a big of it, you don't know which of the many wonderful volunteers you saw outside Christian groups were atheists. Since we don't need to create an atheist separatist parallel culture, we can just participate as volunteers by joining any organisation that pleases us.
Fundamentally, if I may use that word, you seem to want to claim that there is something uniquely nasty about Islam, and that's cool, but please actually demonstrate that with things that are genuinely unique.
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Hmmm. Supporting neither James nor Neil:
Money quote:
As a rule, Islamism's greatest appeal is among second- or third-generation "immigrants": maladapted youth whom the integration process has failed and who feel desperately torn between two worlds--their parents' country of origin, which many have never seen, and their adoptive European homeland. Sadly, psychologists have shown that, whereas depression is prominent among first-generation immigrants who experience adaptational difficulties, schizophrenia predominates among maladjusted second-generation migrants. Such youth turn to Islamism in order to resolve what is often a severe and protracted identity crisis. Given the prevailing logic of social exclusion, it is little wonder that Europe's immigrant ghetto communities are concentrated in dismal neighborhoods characterized by high unemployment, poverty and criminality. Under these circumstances, fundamentalist Islam provides "existential meaning," a sense of belonging as well as an astringent critique of Western mores, which are often perceived as "corrupt" and "materialistic"--a critique that resonates profoundly with the immigrants' own severe adaptational disappointments and failures.
These facts strongly suggest that converts to Islamic fundamentalism are made and not born.
As for the tribal thing, no one familiar with the history of Europe should be able to claim Christians are not tribal with a straight face. Virtually every country from Russia west has examples of sectarian-ethnic violence between Christian sects or between Christians and Muslims, or Christians and Jews. Some of those examples being very recent indeed. Any honest rating of major religions for intra and inter religious violence would leave Christianity and Islam vying for last place - I couldn't be arsed quibbling about just which belongs where.
Muslims believe that the Koran is the word of Allah and cannot be altered or reinterpreted in any way.
It blows my mind James that you claim to be in touch with the Southern USA, unlike us NZ residents, and yet seem unaware of the huge numbers of Christians around you who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.
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I wish it was my list - it's just the composted wisdom of Metatalk, Monkeyfilter, Shirky, and other clever people.
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rodger: Metafilter is good, but I agree it's not perfect.
In fact that highlights a particular challenge for a government entity that wants to encourage discussion. At the end of the day, a private site owner can say "this is my site and this is how I run it and if you don't like it, start your own." But a state-run site has expectations of freedom from bias and neutrality that make it near impossible for a powerful mod to exercise much discretion and still be seen to be fair. In that case I think the only answer is a detailed and prescriptive policy. Freewheeling discussion will suffer as a result, but tough.
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And also for Che: A group is its own worst enemy.
The classic work from Clay Shirky. Lots of food for though there.
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PS: email me so I don't forget, but I know someone who did a 50 page thesis on Metafilter as a case study in online behaviour. I don't have to find it now but it would repay study if you are planning on working in this area.
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a flag on their IP
You should log IPs where admins/mods can find them, so that it's easier to catch people with multiple id's and sockpuppets, but don't make them the basis of automated behaviour, because organisations with broken servers will result in you applying your discipline to many many innocent people.
If I were designing a system from scratch I would also make it easy to for admins/mods to use cookie data to catch shared logins and sockpuppets. Multiple people sharing a login, and one person with multiple logins both break the principle of letting people create an identity and care about its reputation.
You know what? You should identify operators and designers of successful forums and offer them a modest consulting fee. Seriously. Give Matthew Haughey a couple of grand for his advice and that will save you weeks of fooling around.
I am also available at modest, beer-money rates. But I have no credentials at all :)