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@RemyBrown
I like the idea, BUT the sacrifice shouldn't be life imprisonment; it should be death
Not sure it's necessary to go that far. Having a clear peaceful transfer of power is important, and someone dying will probably reduce trust in the government and eliminate the "peaceful" part. If death is on the line, why wouldn't the person try to actually kill the politician and get prison time instead of death?
The chain of command isn't 30,000 Republicans.
Maybe in the worst case set a limited number of assassinations per party. Or require that multiple people together agree to go to prison as a group.
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@yachilviveyachali
Your system could be abused by political activists
More so than assassinations currently?
and by the courts.
More so than impeachment?
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@yachilviveyachali
There are. Politicians and those involved in politics are assassinated across the world more often than you think.
So how does my system make it worse? Those people would probably still be alive if they could be removed peacefully just as easily.
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@yachilviveyachali
Not when you have media influence and terrible groupthink among the masses. They believe what they are told to believe, and doubt what they are told to doubt. Who needs AI when we have the human?
How many examples of "unique good policies" are there made by a politician that no one else would have made? Surely you can come up with a few examples.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
So who would they remove?Every non-nazi canidate.
Not possible, the party of the candidate you remove replaces them.
What they would do is have a candidate who is a puppet of Hitler and Himmler but says nice things about jews while winking and the nazis all know it.
Puppets are possible but not usually as beholden to their "masters" as you might think. There's a reason Putin made himself the actual president as soon as he could. There's no guarantee this puppet will actually listen to Hitler or Himmler, think of how much influence people said Elon would have vs how quickly he and Trump fell out.
You're leaving out the obvious possibility: Hitler and the inner circle worked themselves up just as the rest of the party and the country were.
Then why did they try to hide it even within their own country?
If someone like Trump was removed with my rule for being polarizing, who are Trump supporters going to turn to that's more polarizing than him?Steve Banon, Alex Jones. If they couldn't get them they'd start a civil war.
Neither of them are close to being Trump successors. I mean it's possible something changes, but they're not in that position right now. Look at who the 2028 frontrunners for the Republican Party are besides Trump: Vance, Younkin, Trump Jr., DeSantis. Three of them are obviously more moderate than Trump.
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@yachilviveyachali
Your way invites constant change
Only if people were as crazy as you suggest, in which case why aren't politicians being assassinated all the time? Even before the Secret Service, assassination of presidents was rare.
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@yachilviveyachali
Why do you think this is a problem in western countries?
I think there's a big incentive for politicians to build a cult of personality or stand out by passing terribly policies. When a very bad decision is made, it's often a decision only that politician would make. When a good decision is made, it's usually one plenty of people could have seen was a good idea.
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@yachilviveyachali
Some people are mentally unwell, or they are psychopaths.
And under the current system, they'd probably kill the politician. My way is better for everyone.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Hitler was an emotional abstraction like all god emperors to the people.
Yeah, after he'd been in power for a while. I think he'd have been taken out before then.
They would see this "symbolic assassination" as an attack because they're human and that's how humans think.
So who would they remove? Nazis, to be replaced by other Nazis? Or members of another party to be replaced by others in that party? Once Hitler and Himmler were out, the Nazis would likely settle for a less crazy person who repeated a lot of his talking points and was equally charismatic but not as insane as Hitler. Hitler had name recognition, but it's not like everyone in his party loved how unhinged he was.
Nazis would still hold the same number of seats, but Hitler and Himmler were uniquely dangerous and were known as radicals even within the party. There's a difference between "oppress the Jews" and "burn a huge amount of our potential workforce in gas chambers." We know that because even racist leaders don't usually go that far. If most of the Nazis wanted gas chambers, why wasn't it an official party position before Hitler came to power? Did they all have a secret agreement?
If jews outnumbered the core nazi faction then they could have stopped the take over democratically or physically
The core Nazi faction was relatively small early on. There were just a lot of people who feared communists or hated other groups and were willing to vote Nazis. They wouldn't throw their life away just to make the Nazis more unhinged.
they would just make repealing your rule and undoing all the exclusions the first thing they would do when they control the legislative body
Sure, but someone who saw Hitler's insanity coming would probably remove them before then.
With cults of personality, it's not like the craziness is the main selling point. If someone like Trump was removed with my rule for being polarizing, who are Trump supporters going to turn to that's more polarizing than him? They'd probably be fine with Vance. No one except Trump has gotten as big as him in the current climate by being controversial, and that's because controversy =/= charisma, they just sometimes go together. If Pelosi was removed, it's not like Democrats would insist on replacing her with another corrupt stock trader.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
fervent and radical people
The system doesn't favor fervent and radical people, it favors people who aren't selfish. Why does someone need to be radical to want Hitler out and be willing to put themselves in prison for that?
How many frothing mouth SS types would happily throw themselves in prison to replace anyone who dared to "go easy" on the jews?
Idk that many people would have been willing to throw their lives away for Hitler before the Nazis had complete control over propaganda. The Nazis were crazy, but they certainly weren't selfless. Also pretty much any Jew or other target of the Nazis would put themselves in prison to stop Hitler and Himmler. Targeting a bunch of people for extermination is a great way to guarantee you get removed under my system.
Also, would Hitler even try to get political power the way he did if he knew he'd almost certainly lose it immediately?
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I think people are aware that my theory is correct. They know that it won't truly end because they kill one guy, no matter what the consciously think they believe.
That should make them less inclined to use the system, then, right?
There is also the martyr effect. What you describe would remove it. Finally what you describe is a transition to certainties.
The goal is to transition to a system where politicians are easily replaceable and none of them abuses their power too much. That removes a lot of the incentive to remove one guy from office. Maybe it would be less rare than assassinations, but would it happen all the time if it would rarely change anything? I don't think the turnover would be too much to handle. Plus crazies can only do it once. Maybe there's a purge of widely-hated politicians at the start, but that might be a good thing.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Adolf Hitler was not a remarkable man, or rather I should say his skills were not very unique. He was a brute with good rhetorical skills, there were hundreds like him, it was dumb luck that he ended up the fuhrer.
Sure, but if he'd been removed from office before starting WW2, it's possible the Holocaust could have been avoided. There are more than a few cases in history where one person does a lot of damage. Maybe luck gets them into that position, but having a way to remove them might be a good idea.
But would killing Napoleon make the french revolution any less bloody (Yes I know he was after the reign of terror), but suppose he kept it going? No it wouldn't end there.
If King Louis had been removed from office peacefully, the French Revolution wouldn't have even been necessary. Plus he and many others would have kept their heads. I think killing perpetuates the cycle, but having a system that removes people peacefully from office might reduce violence. I'm also not convinced Napoleon was a bad leader for his time, but there were definitely leaders who should have been removed.
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@yachilviveyachali
How would this not be abused? There are many willing to serve time in prison to get rid of political leaders they don't like.
If someone's willing to go to prison for life to get a politician out of office, maybe that politician ought to be removed from office. It's not abuse, it's the system working as intended. They'd get replaced by someone from their party anyway, so it should barely hinder government operations.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
There aren't enough prisons to hold all the people willing to go to prison to stop the next Hitler when they are so easily convinced the next Hitler is in front of them. Parties don't have enough candidates to field.
Politicians should be getting killed all the time then, right?
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@Sir.Lancelot
How would it work, in theory? A summary of the step-by-step process.
A citizen calls the government and says "I don't want Prime Minister Bob in office anymore. I'll go to jail for life if he's removed from office." The government schedules a tribunal to ensure the citizen is in good health and making a significant sacrifice. If so, they are arrested for life and Bob is removed from office and banned from being elected ever again. Parliament then selects a new prime minister to replace Bob (presumably his party or coalition was in control already or he'd have been replaced).
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What if there was a way to effectively eliminate the incentive for political violence while also allowing a dedicated enough individual to remove a potentially totalitarian politician from office? One approach would be to have legal "assassinations."
Similar to an actual assassination, a citizen would be trading their freedom for a politician's career. However, this would not require killing them. The system I propose would work like this:
1. Any US citizen between ages of 18 and 40 can file to "assassinate" a politician's career.
2. They must prove they are in good health with a decently long life expectancy.
3. The citizen goes to prison for the rest of their life, and the politician is barred from holding office forever. If they are currently in office, they are replaced with the next person in line from their party.
This would ideally be used in a parliamentary democracy, where citizens vote for parties who then appoint politicians from a pre-published list. So an "assassination" wouldn't shift power from one party to another, but if a politician looked like they were about to make a grab for totalitarian power, it could stop them.
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@RemyBrown
It's the word, "born" (which people associate with an infant) and unborn sounds similar.
That doesn't make sense. Does the term "unintelligent" imply intelligence?
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@RemyBrown
"Unborn" carries an emotional connotation
Why? Do unborn lives matter or something?
Emotion doesn't belong in politics.
If people started saying "ZEF" all the time, it would carry the same connotation.
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@RemyBrown
maybe then, "ZEF lives matter"
So another way of saying "unborn" that no one will understand?
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@RemyBrown
then change your slogan to, "fetus lives matter after X weeks."
Yeah, that's catchy.
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@RemyBrown
The left though will usually advocate for banning abortions of later pregnancies though (same with killing 4 year old kids).
Some of them are fine with abortions late in pregnancy. And some pro-life people draw the line at the heartbeat or some other place early in pregnancy.
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@RemyBrown
Because they think a zygote is a human and if you believe a zygote is human, then it's obvious you think the others would be humans.
Or they could just use a phrase that includes all of them lol. Remove any doubt.
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@RemyBrown
They are ZLM supporters (Zygote Lives Matter)!
Are that many zygotes being aborted? Why would they choose a phrase that excludes blastocysts, fetuses, and embryos? This is just taking a phrase that already makes sense ("anti-abortionist") and changing it for no reason.
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@LucyStarfire
1. Me2. Everyone else
As if you or anyone else can even come close to Best.Korea. Just look at the leaderboard.
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Imo, it's as much a Christian sect as Islam is, maybe less so. The differences are significant enough that it seems more like a different religion than a denomination.
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@Sir.Lancelot
I think the playing politics bit explains a lot of it, especially since the right and left are (a) relative to what the "center" is in some particular place, (b) collections of policies that often change and don't always have anything to do with each other. So people can shift to the "right" or "left" without actually changing their opinions.
I always thought this categorization was a bit short-sighted, since moving people to your "side" might be a political win in the short-term but a loss later on if priorities change. If people move to the right because they realize price controls are often inefficient, I think that's good news. If they move to the right because they want to enforce segregation, then that's bad news. Maybe a political shift due to racism would help the free-market people win elections now, but what policies "the right" stands for and prioritizes can change in just a few years.
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@AdaptableRatman
my style not his
Fair I guess.
It was an accurate thread constructively criticising his leadership style.
It was a series of movie references. I mean it was funny, but I don't know how constructive it was.
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@AdaptableRatman
not even you for your mockery of me
Ok but you made a thread mocking WF's moderation style, so what exactly is the difference?
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@AdaptableRatman
That was not just about the mods. I could not care less what David says or not rn.
Well, I don't hate you. I know a lot of people were criticizing your decisions, but I think most of them still appreciate your dedication to the site even if they disagreed with the rules you were proposing. Presumably, you don't hate whiteflame even if you disagree with his moderation style.
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@AdaptableRatman
The mods have said many times that they admire your dedication to the site. I don't think anything in David's post implies that the mods hate you.
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@AdaptableRatman
I am not playing political games at all.
I didn't accuse you of that. I think your motivations are exactly what you say they are. My point is that you aren't basing your decisions off the code of conduct, which you are bound by as a moderator. Why, according to the CoC, is making a parody a bannable offense? What makes use of the word "Hitler" a violation regardless of context in some threads? I don't think either of those things could really be argued to be inflammatory.
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@AdaptableRatman
I think David and WF are on good terms, and I think WF has done a decent job enforcing a CoC that is admittedly vague in places. Just because WF isn't banning a ton of people doesn't mean he's doing a bad job moderating. Banning users isn't the sole function of moderators. Also, the CoC doesn't really call for punishing parodies or banning the word "Hitler" from a thread regardless of context. It's not that the mods have it out for you, it's that your decisions are a big stretch from the CoC, and the mods will generally try to stick to that. If you want to change the rules, the best course of action would be getting users to vote on a rule change instead of trying to unilaterally decide the criteria for banning people.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
You're right, it's super inflammatory.
Hearing Gen Z slang makes me big mad.
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@Lunatic
@ILikePie5
@Mharman
@Mikal
@AdaptableRatman
Tremble before my mod powers!
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Henceforth, the terms rizz, sigma, skibidi, drip, and bussin (except in the context of mafia), are banned from this site. They have been determined to be cringe, although the word "cringe" is also banned. Further investigation will be done into the words slay, fam, and cap, and they will be added to the banned words list if necessary.
Anyone caught in violation of this rule will be subject to the following consequences:
1. You will receive an official warning
2. I will message the moderators and ask them to ban you
3. If the moderators say no, I will message the site owner and ask him to sue you
4. If the site owner says no, I will go back to the moderators and threaten them
5. If the moderators say no again, I will message the site owner and ask him to sue to moderators
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@Sir.Lancelot
There's nothing they can do with it.They have no technical expertise or minimal coding experience.
I have a decent amount. Plus I don't think it will be too hard for others to learn. Once we have it, we have forever to use it, and we're not dependent on Mike's schedule.
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@Sir.Lancelot
If someone's beliefs were so morally depraved or taboo
If no one can express a morally wrong belief, how do you have debates on morality? People have to take opposing sides to debate, and they can't both hold morally right beliefs if their beliefs are in contradiction. Is there a distinction to you between "morally wrong" and "morally depraved"? Why are some morally wrong beliefs okay to express but not others?
For instance, you could never have an abortion debate under these standards. Either the pro-life side is advocating for enslaving women or the pro-choice side is advocating for slaughtering children. For one side to be right, the other side must be advocating a morally depraved belief. They likely don't believe their belief to be morally depraved, but then neither do racist people, for example.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
you have ignored the fact that the moderation log did not say "inflammatory comments" (which wouldn't be good enough)
WF said celebrating the Holocaust was against the rules but not why. The "why" is likely that it's an inflammatory comment.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Thus we know that whatever "inflammatory" means, it must not contradict "DebateArt.com is committed to promoting an environment where users can engage in open and thoughtful debate on any topic, no matter how controversial or offensive it may be."
If you interpret that as a binding rule and not just a stated aim of the CoC, then sure. Take the rule "Moderators have the right to rename a thread or debate title if it is deemed to be offensive or inappropriate. This includes any title or thread that is harmful or offensive to a particular individual or group." That probably fails the stated aim of the CoC. Probably a good argument for rewriting the CoC as it fails its stated aim, but right now the rules are not phrased in such a way as to actually allow open debate on any topic. Arguably any restrictions on what can be said prevent "open" debate.
I want to know that story. Who knew what when.
That was when we thought DART was shutting down. I'm not about to build a new website now, but hopefully we can add features.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
@TheGreatSunGod
Contrast "inflammatory" with "controversial or offensive".
Anything controversial or offensive can be argued to be inflammatory. Not that it definitely is, but an argument can be made for it, even more so since the speech in question didn't contribute much to discussion. That part of the CoC gives moderators very wide discretion to ban things. Gonna be hard to pin moderators down as clearly violating the rules as long as "inflammatory" content warrants a ban.
good luck defining that one
Like TheGreatSunGod says, it's vaguely defined. Which moderators will inevitably use to their advantage. Maybe that should be changed, but as is there's a wide range of posts they could argue a justification for banning.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Probably falls under "inflammatory content."
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@DebateArt.com
Would you be willing to give a few of us access to the code so we can add features?
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@RemyBrown
Catholics take pride in being a sheep.
Well Jesus called himself a shepherd so why wouldn't they?
Could you imagine if 4% of a private school's teachers r@ped kids?
It's been alleged that sexual abuse is actually more common in schools than in the Catholic Church.
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@Casey_Risk
That's good! I think the number one other thing you need to do unlike this site is have some actual good search engine optimization. It's crazy how difficult it actually was for me to stumble upon this one.
Just advertise the site like crazy. Ads aren't cheap but maybe we can make the revenue back.
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@Casey_Risk
Hoping we can avoid that with the newer site by not relying on one owner. Gonna give multiple people access to the code. If you are willing to devote an hour or two to learning Node.js, plz join us. I can send you the discord link.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If you don't care about me writing code at this point and just want advise send me the github link
It's private, I'd need your github username. You don't have to push though. Also I'm pretty sure no one else with access is gonna try and trace your local machine.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Can't you just create a new email?
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@Swagnarok
If he's RM, he should be able to reopen his old account just for a bit. Or message me on discord. But I'm not that invested in proving one way or the other.
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