Ramshutu

No, it’s not a categorical error. For several reasons. First, anything that can detecably affect the universe is by definition empirically validatable. As God, in every single iteration that has ever been proposed, has been asserted to affect the universe - and thus should be detectable.

If you want to argue that God has never materially affected the universe in anyway, go right ahead : you’re basically ruling out every single God that’s has ever been proposed - doing so lends weight to my position, which is that if every other God is made up - this is evidence to the idea that yours is too.

Secondly, you can’t argue - on one hand - that you believe that there is empirical evidence to support the existence of God - then argue his existence is not empirically determinable. This what is known as “kettle logic”, they can’t both be true.

Thirdly, you missed a key point with what I said. You keep treating your God and yor idea as if no one has ever thought about it ever before. The concept of God has been existence for thousands of years - every one has failed tests, basic laws of non contradicion, basic predictivity is shown to be false, and in most cases their logical explanations of the world turn out to be false. All those Gods are definitively wrong from all the evidence. Why not just discard those Gods as false, rather than assert that despite all these other Gods being nonsense - that yours is absolutely real.

Finally, and this is the kicker. A God that is definitively, provably and objectively real is one that we can objectively detect. A God that is definitely made up, is completely undetectable, and will never be objectively detectable. That is the key distinction between the two. You’re argument is basically saying that your God has a key property that made up Gods have, and objectively and probably real Gods do not - you’re providing key evidence of why God does not exist.

Given the weight of evidence - it’s more likely that God doesn’t exist. In the same way as in my example there is more evidence that the cat doesn’t exist.

The problem you, and many Theists make, is not understanding that the disconfirming evidence for God is very different in nature than that of confirming evidence, much in the way of theistic argument attempts to implicitly and illogically exclude - of at least to implicitly refuse to consider

- this evidence.

Of course, the answer depends on how you determine which is more rational. 

The main issue I have is treating the claims as the same sort of thing, when a positive claim and a negative claim are actually pretty different. With a positive claim about the existence of something you can positively establish your claim with a single piece of evidence. A negative claim - no matter how much evidence you have - cannot be specifically proven.

I am an Atheist (capital A), in that I am concinced that gods in any form do not exist, and this position is based primarily on the two part abductive argument that:

1.) The claims of Gods existence are thousands of years old, and if such a being existed one would have expected to have some sort of evidence by now. The belief in God existed before concrete, steel (I think), steam power, electricity, the transistor, the computer, space travel and the internet: despite us formulating explanations of the atom and the expanding universe as a whole - and despite the microscope, the telescope, and detectors sensitive enough to detect neutrinos, the amount of actual objective evidence to support Gods existence is still zero.

2.) Current claims about Gods existence come off the back of those same thousands of years of failed predictions - rather than some new explanation. When you talk about God, you’re not talking about a new hypothesis, or a new explanation for some aspect of the Cosmos. You are talking about a variation of the same God that people have touted for thousands of years, and whose any specific predictions and specific claims have invariably been been proven wrong. 



To not consider these failures, or to expect that current claims of God be treated on their own “merit”, rather than considering the history of failure is inherently irrational in my view - and the primary basis on which most (A)theists base their conclusion.

Or to create an example.

Suppose Jimmy tells you that a cat got into the living room. You go in and there is no cat. You shrug, it’s possible - you have no reason to disbelieve it. 

He comes to you again - saying the cat is on the sofa. It isn’t. Jimmy says that the cat must have run away. This goes on and on - you set up cameras, motion sensors, sound detectors - and never see anything. Let’s say this goes on for months - every day Jimmy comes and tells you that there is a cat. There is never a cat to be seen.

(A)theists conclude that there’s probably no cat, there was probably never any cat, and any claims from Jimmy about there being a cat are likely fictitious.

Theists, on the other hand, tell (A)theists that they are being irrational for concluding that there is probably no cat.

The issue here is that really any attempt to modify or change vote moderation is - to a greater or lesser extent - mostly missing the point and simply polishing the deck chairs on the titanic. The issue with votes is less about the moderation and more about the way the system works - a knock off of the already poor public voting system from DDO.

While not quite as bad - these type of public systems are part of the reason why “Hitler did nothing wrong” was voted as the next flavour of Mountain Dew.

It’s not about moderation, though given the current set up I think it’s necessary to make tactical voting as hard as possible, it’s about inherent trust in the capacity of voters to make an unbiased decision. That’s not going to change - the issues are always going to remain regardless of whether voting is easy or hard.

There are two people in this thread (or another closely related one - I forgot), both complaining about different votes on the same debate going different ways. This he-said she-said sort of bollocks that is the whole thing votes are attempting to block out. It’s because there seems to be an inability for people to be able cope with people voting against them, even if those people are voting in good faith.


The real solution in my view - is a much more complex implementation for voters, that actually allows voters to be fairly ranked and weighted on a given debate based on past votes.

If you only ever vote for a theist position, or a conservative position - then your vote shouldn’t count as much as someone who votes both ways regularly. A first time voter shouldn’t count as much as someone with 1000 votes, and someone who frequently gets votes removed gets ranked lower than ones who don’t.  If someone you vote against thinks your vote is fair - you’re future votes could be weighted more.


The big problems and issue with voting in my view - is that the inherent approach taken is flawed, and lends itself to people thinking that all voting is tactical and not based on who actually did better in the debate.

Talking about short term tweaks like this, in my view has to go hand in hand with thinking about the long term strategy to remove key problems inherent in the approach taken.

i approve of the moderation. Not sure I approve of them specifically, not one of them has ever bought me a beer.

Easy stalky, you only spent only sentence making sh*t up. You need to try harder

yeah! It’s like I’m deliberately comparing Mopac to bad rappers or something

Watch our there, stalky. You didn’t crawl far enough up my arsehole with that reply!

Kanye is a sleaze bag? Please. He’s up there with Pitbull, Lil pump and and stitches.

Wait, you don’t think Mopac is a misunderstood Genius? He is the Kanye of DART.

If it helps, the super cowards are the ones that didn’t make it on to the site, if it helps, the Ethang is the standard unit of measure for pure dumbassery. So you’re a few orders of magnitude below the current leader. And while you’re not dumb, you’re no Mopac. 

If Mediocre were a band, it would be Toto.

follow up questions.

Nah, you’re a mediocre dumb person too.

You just got out-trolled by the person who you said got out trolled by Ethang.

Think about that, for a moment.

no, you repeatedly following me around, and replying to me with name calling and accusations, yet not explaining what it is - specifically - that you take issue with makes you a stalker.

For whatever reason, you can’t seem to leave me alone! Like I said, you’re the shit that won’t flush.

I would consider you a mediocre coward at best.

for someone with nothing to say to me, you sure as hell spend a lot of time following me around saying things.

You keep calling me a ringer - and keep saying that anyone who looks at my voting record can see - yet you never explain exactly what it is about my voting record that you find so objectionable (well, asside from the examples that can be shown to be complete fabrication).

Easy now stalky McStalkerson; could you stop being the human equivalent of a shit that wont flush. I’m waiting for you to tell me the exact specifics of what vote and what actions I’ve done that you think are unfair or unreasonable. You’re doing an excellent of following me about and making vague accusations with no explanation - well done, here’s a chufty badge - now please give a specific example of a vote you feel was unreasonable, and why.

Please stop stalking me. If you have some specific claim or objection based on actual evidence of reality, please let me know. If you’re just going to follow me around and insult me, then I’ll direct you to the book.

I wager 400 quatloos on the newcomer.

of course it’s a personal attack: every single accusation is demonstrably untrue, and you continually follow me around accusing me of all sorts of things without any evidence.

Its like your obsessed with me, and seem intent on assignations my character with these repeated lies: even after your called on your bullshit. You can’t produce any reasons why you think I’m a ringer, and you can’t produce any examples of votes that are unfair. All you can produce is ridiculous shit that anyone who can read knows is false.

You need to stop with this bullshit.

No unfortunately, it seems that the only way to shut you up is to provide demonstrable proof that you’re a compulsive liar.

If you’re argument is really that if I’m innocent, I should keep quiet in the face of someone repeatedly lying about you, then I’m sure I could have a field day with all the nonstop bullshit accusations I could throw at you. 

However, as reality actually matters to me, that’s not something I’m going to do.

You need to stop with this baseless and utterly unsupported personal attacks. 

I'm struggling to work out why you think this is ironic.

You see, in this case irony (specifically situational irony), is when something happens that is opposite of what is expected or intended. Such as being killed by a gun that you bought to protect yourself.

So in this thread, you claimed atheists of not existing. It would be ironic in this case if Atheists were arguing that something existed that they had no evidence for, but there’s no earthly way you could draw that conclusion - as most of the thread was Atheists providing some form of evidence that they exist.

What you’re doing, is starting a thread intended to prove a key point in Atheists, only to reveal that youre unknowingly relying on a critical logical flaw that demolishes your whole point. 

That is, most assuredly, irony.

If you had taken the bet, I gaurentee you it would have been up to 12 pages.

Oh look! It’s my biggest fan, come to stalk me again!

If you have any specific objections to any of my votes: please go right ahead. 

So far, you’ve objected to my votes because I exclusively and without deviation vote for the theist and liberal position half of the time, that I was the only person on a debate that voted one way along with three others, that 50% of the time I vote for virt every time, and I vote for Bsh1 every single debate of his that I have voted for; all once of them. Somehow you always find something better to do, and some other thread to respond to when ever I post direct evidence that your claims are factually false - an odd coincidence.

The guy doesn’t get to chose whether it’s accidental :P

You’re the type of guy who says the word heck a lot. I can feel it.

If you want to end abortion, just castrate any man who gets a woman pregnant accidentally.

It will end overnight.

I think that’s mostly what post #77 and #81 were talking about from Castin - again - not wanting to put words in her mouth. I felt it was clear that she was talking about the personal attack part, which happened to incorporate the lie. I’m pretty much with you, wylted was out of line, but I don’t think it’s the lying part that was the issue. Pitchforks would be warranted if wylted was banned just for the lying part.

Not wanting to put words in her mouth, but I’m pretty sure the ban was for a the pretty outrageous personal attack - which happened to take the form of a lie. That’s what I took from her replies on the previous page. I think other people took that to mean that the issue was the lie, rather than the attack.

i was actually already writing a practical voting guide/information guide based on my personal approach already.

sure, I'd be up for that in the new year, depending on what content you want.

Edit: I can add stuff related to vote quality, analyzing debates and common errors

I'll bet 10 pages. Willing to take that bet?

Ahh yeah, the secret voting Cabal! When do I get my secret voting cabal badge??

50% of time, I vote for virt every time!

In general, I start off skim reading the debate, and opening writing my RFD in note pad.

Then I go through the debate for the vote. I start off with the first argument, work out is strength, how well it’s supoorted, then start moving down,  back and forth to determine where the argument is mentioned, if it is refuted, and assess those refutations and their strength. 

After this, I go back to the top and start with the second. Then third, etc.

it can mean that I read the debate about 73 times, but it does mean second and third times around I catch things I missed: I have repeatedly ended up changing my determined winner this way.

I am absolutely happy to consider issues and talk about problems from a different point of view. I think the voting rules are a bit onerous too: you’re confusing is that what I am objecting to, is your inability to express this in a way that is not toxic to the community, or self defeating for your own aims.

I’m talking about actions such as abusing the reporting system, trying to push your own chances by starting poll threads, starting up anti-moderator votes, being outwardly hostile, and immediately jumping on any minor transgression as proof of malefeasance. It doesn’t help anyone at all, and is the cause of rather than solution too many of the problems you’re discussing - which you don’t seem to want to acknowledge. 

Actions like the above (which are not exclusively yours, but you are on of the most vocal) provide disproportionate volume to issues that need to be better discussed, and drives moderators into a pattern of behaviour predicated on avoiding posing the vocal people off - which is what got us to much of the mess in the first place.

If you want to convince yourself that I think the moderators or rules are perfect, as being solely opposed me completely disagreeing with your toxic actions, which seem to be motivated more by your own personal animosity and actions than by any specific moderator actions - go ahead, but that’s not what I’ve been saying.

This is about your inability to act like an adult in the face of disagreement. And in that, I find a thousand times more fault and malefeasance in your behaviour thus far than in all the moderator activity I have observed thus far.

Of course, the pendulum has swung the other way,to be more onerous and explicit - For the specific reason that people like come along and nitpick every decision, and assign a level of obnoxious outrage that far exceeds the facts.

You seem to keep dodging that.

In the process of dodging it, you ironically seem to be intent on constructing straw men to assert your point wherever my explanation and language aren’t 100% explicit.

No: I’m not arguing that subjectively has been completely removed - but it’s far harder to subjectively interpret the current CoC than previous iterations. 

Discretion has been reduced because of people like you, reacting like you have here and elsewhere on this forum - and I absolutely do not blame them for doing so.

And another straw man - you’re claiming that I’m stating that “their shit don’t stink”, quite frankly, I am quite willing to accept that the moderators have made, are making and will continue to make errors - my argument here is less a support of everything the mods do: but pointing out that ridiculous histrionic approach you’re taking is the very thing that harms sites like these for all the reasons I’ve stated and you seem to be pathologically unable to acknowledge. Let me spell it out again, because it appears that despite mentioning it multiple times, you don’t want to acknowledge it:

The voting rules we have is a product of people like your toys out of the pram, acting like children, and complaining to the point where those who make the rules do their best to write onerous rules to make everyone happy. It’s because moderators in the past have treated people like you like adults though you’re acting like toddlers.

Now, the voting rules are pretty much identical to how they were. The only materially different aspect is some arbitrary definition about “borderline votes”, which was pretty much what was already happening, and a part of what everyone was already complaining about. So no: I don’t think that there has been any reasonable or practical change over what was there before. The main difference is that there isn’t a douche reporting every vote any more.


Unfortunately, from this point you have now started arguing around in circles. You’re not even acknowledging the central issue here.

You’re arguing that the voting policy is too strict and harsh, then when pointed out that following helps make the moderation less biased, you are the that’s a good thing. Are you now for the voting rules or against? 

You’re arguing both that the moderators should use their discretion whilst simultaneously complaining that they have used their discretion, it’s frankly incoherent.


This all seems to boil down to you not liking Bsh1, and seeing foul play everywhere. I’ve never had an issue asking questions in public or private by any of the moderators, I’ve seen them respond repeatedly to individuals on multiple threads that were irrationally hostile and repeatedly hostile.

So after starting threads demanding resignation, despite you responding to mod posts like you’re doing here, starting polls angrily demanding a change in the rules because you got caught abusing the system, your complaint now seems to be that bsh doesn’t answer your hypothetical questions and he’s a bit aloof, and the mod team agrees with him. 

Well, no shit Sherlock.

Yeah, that’s not actually true. I’ve seen multiple posts on multiple debates for multiple ideologies removed and not removed by various moderators, and see no specicific or actual pattern in voting. I’ve had both for and against votes removed for conservative and theist positions by bsh, and have seen similar things repeatedly.

It’s  easy to see patterns that aren’t there if you aren’t looking at the whole body - just ask Ethang5, he’s made similar sorts of whacky claims. I don’t always agree with the moderators decisions, I would have been harsher in some cases and less harsh in others but always moderating according to ideology - not so much.

You may or may not recall, but DDO originally had true open voting. There was votebombing, counter vote bombing, and people got fed up, we’re posting different threads complaining about it, so they started enforcing that you had to have a valid RFD. Then when people posted RFDs that were obviously wrong, biased or obvious, people complained about those too. So the rules started being enforced to weed those out too. Then people stared complaining that “well this guys was not valid, so how come this one is”, because the rules were nominally generic and gave the mods latitude. 

Through a combination of abuse, criticism, and hissyfittery on the part of all the wronged people in the world, outraged that one time one mod came down on an RFD against them, we got to the set of rules we have now.

The RFD rules we have force voters to justify their points under specific conditions, and give reasons for assigning victory. Without those rules spelling out what is and is a valid vote, you are forced to become subjective, and in some cases arbitrary - with the mods being the people who decide whether a subjective RFD meets these generic rules - meaning that mods end up moderating the validity of the content rather than whether the vote gave appropriate reasons, that bad.

The reason the moderators have to work this way, and what I have been pointing out - is people like you (i didn’t specify you specifically are doing this, nor that this is the opinion you hold - so you’re the one misrepresenting my position) are responsible for the rules being like the are - I agree with the reasons.

People could act like grown ups, send PMs (which I don’t always do myself - though I try), and try and be calm, rational and have discussions:  but this is always drowned out by the people who see one mod decision and start polls tying to remove a mod from his position,  or preemptively start a poll trying to get people to listen to you and change the rules by bypassing direct discussions - or working against the community by spam reporting anyone and everyone.

People like you make practical moderation impossible - because it is literally impossible for them to do anything without being attacked and vilified either by you or someone else on the other side whenever a moderation decision is made.

It is you, and the class of people like you, who are the cause and driver for strict rules, and implicitly tie moderators hands by forcing them to be “fair and unbiased” through this sort of histrionics: derailing an announcement about a new moderator installed to talk about your personal grievances.

Would you want to make a decision if this is the sort of stuff you were subjected to every time you try and act in good faith? Lock an abusive thread? censorship. Delete a post doxxing another user? Lack of transparency. Remove a vote that a mod (and others) feels violates the standards? They’re biased. Don’t remove it? They’re not exercising their discretion.

This behaviour - the report spamming, the voting threads, the faux outrage here: rather than a rational discussion and some ability to accept decisions in key aspects that don’t go your way is literally the reason we can’t have nice things.

It seems you’re doing your best to try and avoid this key aspect of the interaction between moderation and community.

Yes, and I explained it pretty well why.

A strict policy is required in order to prevent outright fraud. Voters and debaters will normally refrain from reporting obviously good faith votes. It is fair to expect moderators to adhere specifically within the rules with little because there are so many people like you who repeatedly and constantly challenge any attempt for any moderator to exercise their discretion.

So yeah: I’d love for me to get the benefit of it the doubt on votes, maybe I “just had a bad day”, or wrote a substandard vote when my heart was in the right place, or missed out something. But I completely understand that there is absolutely no compelling reason for anyone to actually do that, because if they did someone like would post threads like “Votegate: Ramshutu and Virtuoso in cahoots!” 

thas what he said.

Bingo.

did you not read?

I don’t need to validate claims about “The Road Runner”, The Road Runner is The Ultime Reality, It exists, so the road runner exists. We must protect reality from Wile-e-coyote.

I think you are confused. In absolutely no case, do I think I have ever had a vote removed for unfair reasons. When I have had it pointed out I didn’t give sufficient reasons - it’s because I didn’t put sufficient reasons in. I think the voting rules are fair - and how harsh they are hasn’t really been changed in that respect, and rightly so. They are onerous and specify exactly how much effort you need to go into to make sure it’s a fair vote.

My frustration isn’t that I have had a vote removed unfairly, but frustration borne out of me making an error without realizing - the ever begrudging acknowledgement that I messed up my justification.

Ive once had an issue with voting on DDO relating to conduct points in one case - which I *shock* politely explained to a mod in PM - who agreed to let it stand after my explanation of why I felt it was valid.

The absolute fucking irony here is not lost on me: the mods have to treat every vote the same when reported, and have to hold them to the standards that are written down. I absolutely support this, and agree with their decision to  limit their own discretion.... Because every time a moderator “exercises discretion”, someone like you spams the forums with how much of an abuse of power it is that this mod didn’t follow the CoC to give an advantage to one side or the other. They literally can’t win.

I’m not talking about some road runner, I’m talking about “the road runner”, which I have defined to mean reality.

as reality exists, “the road runner” also exists by definition.

therefore reality makes a meep meep noise.

Yes. You keep making this argument. It’s pretty simple.

Voting rules have to be onerous - because that’s the only way to remove grudge votes or obvious bias. Its possible, but arduous to vote up to the level required by the voting guidelines if you’re not used to it. If you are used to it. It’s often the case you get a little lazy, you don’t do as good a job.

It’s like speeding. The limits are 30mph, 45mph. Etc. Everyone speeds, but as long as you’re not going 50 in a 30 no one gives a crap. Borderline or kinda shitty votes for people who’s heart is in the right place and just fell a bit short or made an error in their justification aren’t the vote abusers the rules were created to inhibit, so no one generally reports them, and everyone is happy, the same way that you’ll get left alone if you dont drive like a douche.

People were pissed for the same reason that Normal people would be pissed if they got a ticket for riding 31 in a 30 zone repeatedly because some dickhole neighbour had a radar gun and continually reported you to the police to enforce the rules. Or got pissed that they got two tickets, then see that same neighbour outside their house with a radar gun.

The voting rules are there to enforce a high standard of decisions, and should for the most part need to be infrequently upheld because of minimal reports. The issue on DDO wasn’t the removal - the rules are good - it was the individuals who couldn’t deal with people voting against them and reporting everything. Which forced everyone to be in their toes. Right now, I’ve actually seen a big improvement on vote detail since your nonsense - maybe everyone just upped their game!

I got a few votes removed, and I wasn’t pissed off at the mods, or the rules: I was pissed off at the person reporting a vote that wasn’t too far off. Like being reported for doing 35 in a 30 zone 

“a statement of the meaning of a word or word group or a sign or symbol"

Yes, and I am saying that in this thread, in my posts: that the meaning of the word group “the road runner”, is “reality”.

So now that you have agreed that I can define “the road runner” to be reality, let’s move on.

Reality exists

I have defined “the road runner” to mean reality.

Therefore, by definition “the road runner” must exist. Right?

Stop dodging