Skunk's Golden Law On Political Bbs

[RedSkunk]

There is no single political issue (politics broadly defined as the struggle for power) that can be succinctly asked, answered, or argued in a form where the typical attention span is, at most, 500 words. Therefor, we come to the realization that it is not Newgrounds' fault - or its posters, or "society" - for a lackluster politics section. It's an innate failing of the media form. Until book-length & -quality content is realized, political "debate" or dialogue on the internet is lame and largely impossible / irrelevant. Till a major restructuring ("Web 3D"?), the internet as a political discussion tool will be limited to:
1) preaching to the choir and the sharing of info between like-minded individuals,
2) shouting matches between the simpleminded, ideologues, and the naive,
&
3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.

Thought?

[SadisticMonkey]

If Christians weren't so ignorant....

[Tomsan]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote:

3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.

Oh I definatly fall under that category

[morefngdbs]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote:

Thought?

;
I'm not sexually frustrated, I have 7th sister to thank for that.

[BlueMax]

I'm not sure that I agree.

So far, my average posts have been well larger than 200+ words, in the discussion of all kinds of deep topics; like an understanding of good and evil, Logic exercises, what happens if we COULD divide by zero.

I'll grant you that many of the people on this site are either dedicated to the point where they will argue on enthusiasm alone, or too uniformed to make anything other than basic gut-level reactions to things that are said. But these are a function of the young audience on this website. And, for what its worth, they're only about half the people here.

Skunk's golden law should be much more something like 'Skunk's recurring tendency', because I believe that sufficient counter-examples exist to throw this into doubt.

And in any case, Skunk's law has my sympathy; I don't like profane, idiotic one-minute responses, and I just assume there was some kind of 'Spam Thread" that they can pass their gas into.

[Malachy]

I disagree totally

I have wikipedia links to prove you wrong.

[tony4moroney]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote:

3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.

based on your propensity to bitch and nag that has been made apparent in your recent posts i'd say you fit into this latter one.

[JudgeDredd]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote: It's an innate failing of the media form. Until book-length & -quality content is realized, political "debate" or dialogue on the internet is lame and largely impossible / irrelevant.

The strength of the internet (including all 'connectivity' related gadgetry) is the speed of it's development and widespread adoption. Our ability to become fully 'self-informed' has never been better. Success on the internet has so far depended on getting the most relevant information to 'filter to the top' (a-la google search / google news). So althou we have an entire world of info available to us, user driven popularity still plays a significant role in web delivery. However, today's web forums (community boards, discussion boards, blogs, news commenting, etc) with it's thread-like structure have hardly evolved since the web's early bulletin board origins.

1) ...sharing of info between like-minded individuals.

This first step was to make the internet and it's content popular (being user driven, ie. largely user derived and opinionated). This included making it widely accessable and affordable. That now achieved, the second step would be to turn this strength of popularity into purpose leading to meaningful progress..

2) ...shouting matches between the simpleminded, ideologues, and the naive.

The political status quo (a 4 yearly - 2 party 'Democarcy') leaves many of us dissociated from 'blanket' political decisionmaking which affects our lives. Even when we group in the real world, we struggle not to be labelled and marginalized (cornered by a society that refuses to acknowledge a groups needs, beliefs, or concerns). Currently (here in NZ aswell) this is a very hot issue..

---------------
(sauce: "We're no terrorists")

"Police smashed through the door and raided the house early on Monday morning as part of a nationwide operation that seized firearms and targeted a loose alliance of activists alleged to have plotted armed attacks..

"I still don't know why (the house) was targeted," said resident and veteran protester Sam Buchanan. "Maybe (police) genuinely can't tell the difference between protest groups and terrorist groups."

At the 2001 G8 summit in Italy Buchanan was one of more than 90 protesters arrested and charged with attempted murder during anti-globalisation riots. The charges were dropped and he was deported. Mr Buchanan said he was not a pacifist, supporting violent protest in situations such as Myanmar and South Africa, but he believed violence was unnecessary in New Zealand.

He said weapons were banned from the house. "The only people who brought weapons into (the houe) were the police. If anyone came in carrying a weapon, we'd stop them at the door and tell them to go away." While some protesters were outspoken, and made the odd "facetious comment about blowing something up ... that hasn't created violence." He believed the arrests were made to bolster the police position nationwide [referring to anti-terrorist funding and current lawchanges under review], rather than being based on any credible threat.

Police were casual when they searched the house, he said, letting him and a friend use large knives to make an apple pie. "If you really think that this is a terrorist connection, you don't let people grab knives if they're in the room with police officers. "That seemed to me that they didn't really believe that this was a site of terrorism."
--------------

The crux of the matter as i see it is this; If one believes that to be made 'politically diseffectual' is against our human or legal rights, then how exactly can we affect political change without bolstering a groups numbers until we're a force to be reckoned with? (like with new media techniques) Is change possible with or without activism? (mob behaviour, or like as happened in Burma for example). Can the actions of a few compromise a group from the outset? (unrepresentative loose extreme elements) Can we trust authorities not to confuse political groups with terrorist groups? (as in the above NZ example) Can likemindedness be easily translated into political capital? (financial or political leverage) If so, how? And lastly, can the internet convert apparent (global) popularity of causes into effectual representation in the real world? (..if that is deemed the only way forward).

.

[TheMason]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote: 3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.

Hey now...I represent that remark! I mean...

Welcome back Skunk!

[Politics]

Hey Skunk. Sup?

[GaiusIuliusTaberna]

At 10/17/07 03:17 AM, RedSkunk wrote: There is no single political issue (politics broadly defined as the struggle for power) that can be succinctly asked, answered, or argued in a form where the typical attention span is, at most, 500 words. Therefor, we come to the realization that it is not Newgrounds' fault - or its posters, or "society" - for a lackluster politics section. It's an innate failing of the media form. Until book-length & -quality content is realized, political "debate" or dialogue on the internet is lame and largely impossible / irrelevant. Till a major restructuring ("Web 3D"?), the internet as a political discussion tool will be limited to:
1) preaching to the choir and the sharing of info between like-minded individuals,

I've never met anyone that I completely agreed with

2) shouting matches between the simpleminded, ideologues, and the naive,
&

simple minded and naive no ideologically fixed yes

3) being the playground of bored, sexually frustrated individuals preying on the aforementioned parties.

Board yes sexually frustrated well that's what the internet is for is it not... porn

Thought?

Sentio aliquos togatos contra me conspirare

I think some people in togas are plotting against me.

[JudgeDredd]

At 10/18/07 10:09 PM, Grammer wrote:

At 10/17/07 02:36 PM, JudgeDredd wrote: stuff

Man, I didn't catch any of that, what's going on again?

Summary?

The idea that any "smallish" group using the internet advocating change outside the 2 party system will undoubtly be labelled activists. It only takes a few bad apples, and they're a terrorist organization. At some level of numbers a group passes a threshhold of being able to be "shut down" or dismissed.

How does one advocate change in a way that secures widespread support, without radical propositions or ideals which might attract more than a few radical recruits, or bunch of idiots who will draw "unwanted attention".

There's a catch-22 there, and made worse with an online political movement, because you never really know whos for real, whos underage, whos faking (inside stirring), or even whos gathering a cache of weapons under their bed and planning to take down the government (as suggested in the NZ case) under an umbrella of a wider peaceful organization.

.

[tony4moroney]

At 10/19/07 12:01 AM, JudgeDredd wrote:

i read through your dissertation and in trying to draw a conclusive finding i got this;

42

[JudgeDredd]

At 10/19/07 12:12 AM, tony4moroney wrote:

At 10/19/07 12:01 AM, JudgeDredd wrote:

i read through your dissertation and in trying to draw a conclusive finding i got this;

42

(life the universe..)

ok, name just 1 political movement that exists primarily because of the internet (ie. didn't exist prior to the internets existance) ..let's see whos the best answer.

[D2Kvirus]

The correc t answer is Bryan Danielson's promo at Race to the Top: Night Two.

A little ROH message board humour for you there...

[tony4moroney]

At 10/19/07 12:20 AM, JudgeDredd wrote:

ok, name just 1 political movement that exists primarily because of the internet (ie. didn't exist prior to the internets existance) ..let's see whos the best answer.

OK the Ron Paul movement.

[GaiusIuliusTaberna]

At 10/19/07 12:20 AM, JudgeDredd wrote:

At 10/19/07 12:12 AM, tony4moroney wrote:

At 10/19/07 12:01 AM, JudgeDredd wrote:

i read through your dissertation and in trying to draw a conclusive finding i got this;

42

(life the universe..)

ok, name just 1 political movement that exists primarily because of the internet (ie. didn't exist prior to the internets existance) ..let's see whos the best answer.

I belong to one, check it out its called Nova Roma