Skeptic Project

4/10/2010

This is kind of a old post that i wrote and Joey345 put on tmz forums. I was responding to a issue on the labeling of trolls within tmz but also in general as well. I also have things on new paradigms in here has well.

I decided to keep all information intact and not change anything even though my opinions may have changed since whenever I made this post.

this post was replying to Apollo's post on tmz forum about trolls, seems Joey's post was deleted by somebody...

http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=99999&func=view&catid=60&id=216501#216501

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I will respond to this therefore inevitably defining myself as a troll. This article is completely rational in one sense. It’s basically a definition of how admins and moderators should deal with people who disagree with them. Now in one sense that is in fact how a typical forum is ran and therefore I completely agree with you but I must disagree in this case as this is the zeitgeist movement. This movement should be held to a higher standard because many and I mean MANY people fundamentally disagree with this movement on many bases from it being communism to everything else between. I suppose I’m saying ask yourself the question as to why this is? What are the symptoms that led to this persons beliefs and can we prove or get them more sophisticated on the subject. Matter in fact every line in this definition of being a troll goes against what this movement is trying to do in my opinion therefore trying to borrow these types of concepts from other forums will completely fail (read below)

“A classic troll tries to make us believe that he is a skeptic. He is divisive and argumentative with need-to-be-right attitude, "searching for the truth", flaming discussion, and sometimes insulting people or provoking people to insult him. A troll is usually an expert in reusing the same words of its opponents and in turning it against them.”

By this very definition I will start labeling trolls here.

Peter Joseph – is a troll because in his video he bashes religion without stating the positive effects of religion thereby only giving one side of the coin.

Jacque Fresco – is a troll because he comes off as a crazy guy with crazy ideas of building crazy building running a society on communistic ideals.

Anybody apart of the Christian religion – Because they are a cult that believe in a mythological book.

Scientists – Because they do just about everything and then some to be a troll. They are in fact the very definition of what a troll is. J

By the very definition Apollo has given all four of these things can be defined as troll like. Just because I do not agree with running this site as just a typical site or the old paradigm but we need to start looking into new paradigms.

Fresco is correct in that we invented rules because we have no innovative ways to fix them yet. I believe as a collective we can think up some pretty creative things that are of importance for the Zeitgeist movement if we work together. This is in fact how linux started by a community of people working together (FOSS in general). Linux communities cannot afford to have trolls or poisonous people basically their communities are their to attract people not necessarily to change their perspective but to get them to use their product and to attract developers (hard to keep this concept going in a monetary society). I get that I agree but the Zeitgeist movement is asking people to change the very foundation at which people believe and to go with this movement. This is a BIG change unless your only trying to attract like minded people which is few to none, at which are mainly atheists and open minded people then your doing a good job and you deserve a pat on the back.

There has NEVER been an effort such as changing a websites hierarchical system but I have seen efforts in recent years to dealing with what you define as trolls without banning them. I have actually accepted trolls into a few of my forums communities as they do have things to say dare it I gave them moderator status as well as *GASP* let them be on the main developer team/projects. Now to say I do not believe in rules well first I am just an individual and I will follow the rules of the forum but this forum again isn’t a typical forum and we need rules that pertinent/flexible for this movement in general. I believe spam bots and some exceptions to people need to be banned. In that a global bann is unneeded as maybe so called trolls can express themselves in a manner that’s better on one medium than another so be it they shouldn’t be banned on all mediums then. So yes I believe in rules and keep in mind Alexander the great believed in rules not only for people but rules need to be obeyed by the king himself. By the very definition of troll as Apollo has given I can define the admin/mods of the forum as being a troll. It’s in fact a troll with power *GASP*

Next question is…. Billll okay your stuff sounds logically maybe that’s why we are not attracting a lot of users to the site and the number of people willing to go with this movement is dramatically dropping, why?

Answer: IDK, all that I do know is we need to try something else that will fit this communities needs. Obviously I failed this community and the community has failed me hence I’m banned. In Apollo’s definition I think I would be defined as the troll with low forum post count, that defies a admin, and that the community may support because I make truthful humorous posts. I’m a troll now NOW *SIGH* now lets get on with this discussion.

Anyways I read a book called [u]A New Kind of Christian[/u] by Brian D. McLaren. Now don’t go on judging me I’m no Christian by a long shot to be honest I’m spiritual believing in for example infinity but not in a religion bases. I tend to keep an open mind so I read this book mainly because I felt through skim reading that the word spiritual and spirituality were mentioned a lot which gathered my interested. The story mainly talks about a priest in Canada who did not believe in the old ways or the old paradigm of being a Christian. He came to this conclusion as to him it was a life or death situation either continue down this path at which he was contemplating suicide or stop and try to find a new way to be a Christian. He soon dropped out of priest hood and found himself but their was a thing in the start of the book that I want everybody to read on the concept of the old and new paradigms as in this book it defines 4 stags of a old to new paradigm transition that this individual went through. I will copy/paste those pages down below (read below).

http://st0rage.org/~graalreborn11/sized%20down/book33.jpg

http://st0rage.org/~graalreborn11/sized%20down/Oldnewparadigm1122.jpg

Okay obviously this is the situation right now. Tanktop is use to running forums like this I believe is getting paid by Peter Merola to do so, he wants things to be ran professionally, from my understanding and I could be wrong but Tanktop is personal friends with PJ another reason he was hired. VTV has been in the political realm a few times and is use to things being policed and if they aren’t he wishes they could be. Thunder follows the leaders. Peter Merola is a moviemaker he is not a developer but more a individual who sees things wrong in society in his opinion and makes a movie about it called Zeitgeist that supports the venus project. DarkDancer follows the leaders.

DNS into FOSS, programming and admining, open minded in many ways. Lukas a scientist at heart, believes in research and facts, believes in FOSS, very open minded, is a programmer.

Billll college graduate in mechanical engineering, 23 years of age, programmer but does other things besides computers aka build a arcade machine, rebuild junk cars. Jacque Fresco, inventor, architect, industrial designer, public speaker. Etc…

I believe the people in power have no concept of what a new paradigm is yet… Their still using old paradigms and I believe they do not have the sophistication to go onto new paradigms or except them at this time. This is something that will hold the Zeitgeist movement back and a dramatic drop in users joining up will be the result of it or dramatic drops in users actually sticking with the movement. When I say lack of sophistication it’s not a knock on someone’s intelligence but more that they lack the information to make a good judgment call.

For example a individual in America may be born into a Democratic or Republican family therefore this individual will likely become a Dem or Rep depending on the family much like religion. Once this individual is not around in that or subjected to that environment they may actually switch parties, maybe turn atheists in rebellion state or something else. However they came to the revelation to go to a new paradigm they did it through being more sophisticated or having more information that resulted in that outcome. Simply put people need to have more education on FOSS and be OPEN minded. People for example who are Republican and have a lot of information on being Republican tend to also have a lot of negative information Democrats than positive, those people who have that type of old paradigm sophistication are a lot harder to win over because for instance if any new positive Democrat information is given to a well informed Republican this NEW information is simply ignored unless it’s information pertaining to their own party. Again it’s the environment that conditions an individual to think this way.

Even VTV would agree that if VTV started talking to a libertarian about the Venus project or this movement and used the word collective they would automatically think VTV is a COMMUNIST = WHAT TROLL!

There is another term I want to put out their as what I would deem as troll like activity for admins and mods besides being stalker and bann witch hunting I want to explain the term primacy. I’ve talked about primacy many times in Vent, and mumble but primacy well the roots of it developed back in Vietnam well more the physiological after affects of Americans in Vietnam. Primacy is defined as 1. The state of being first or foremost. Putting primacy in a physiological example would be if a brother and his sister were playing and the brother hits the sister, the sister says she’s going to tell daddy the brother says not if I tell daddy first. The brother manages to tell his Dad first, but the brother has no visual affect of a bruise, the sister comes crying and tells her Dad that her brother is lying. In this case for primacy the Dad believes the brother but the sister corrects the father but even if the sister correct the fathers’ the punishment for the boy will be less severe or the father may say this isn’t even a bad thing at all. Why is the father being so laid back with the boy? Since the boy made contact with his father first he INACULATED his father in a way with information and when his sister said her brother punched her it didn’t matter as the father was already INACULATED by her brother so when the father had to switch to punishing the boy it will be less serious because the father had been INACULATED with information by the boy first. Keep in mind this is a analogy to describe primacy and should not be taken literally I would hope to imagine the boy gets punished the same with or without inoculation.

This has happened in real life for example in Obama’s election. Obama wrote a book and he admitted to trying cocaine. Why would he do that, is he dumb? No no in fact he’s not, reason being it’s less of a issue if Obama comes out and says he did cocaine than if someone else did. Since Obama got it out first and it was him that did the wrong people rationalize that he is a human being (democrats at least) and make mistakes also Obama had INCULATED the people as well incase his foes were to use that against him in the election. If his foes were to use that info while it was already out they would be looked at as douches but if that information hadn’t of been given out by Obama that can be used against in the election. Of course I hope we all know there isn’t 1 silver bullet when it comes to election.

So the next question is how does primacy relate to admin/mods being trolls. Well from my understanding VTV and tanktop all keep in contact with Peter Joseph and Jacque Fresco and therefore have primacy obviously over anybody else. They are the eyes and ears to PJ and Jacque. So these individuals can tell PJ and Jacque information and they can spin it any way they want to. So when PJ comes into and chats about issues of banning trolls he is sophisticated with information given by tanktop and VTV aka admins and mods, therefore the majority of information PJ is seeing is very narrow and less sophisticated. Is this right well of course not but it’s a glitch within the human brain I’m sorry to say.

If we have glitches within our monkey brains what are we suppose to do and why the hell are you bothering us with this? Well to answer you I just inoculated you now your aware of what’s going on J and now we need to move to a new paradigm :D

So an admin defines me as a troll so what? The admin is doing a form of labeling which I disagree with on top of that he is in a position of power so he has authority as well. Even if I were to disagree with that fact that I am not a troll until my face turns blue it wouldn’t matter because I’ve already been labeled by the people in power and it would take something major for me to change it. I was apart of the Ohio chapter, I came upon this movement through vent first randomly one day and found people like myself upon this vent. I decided to stay and learn, and at that I am learning all the time and still am. I find banning trolls or defining such as what Apollo did not productive as well and not conducive for the Zeitgeist movement. No I do not have all the answer I believe we can start doing things right now to be honest. We CAN start a transition to the Venus project. I believe we can do this with or without the zeitgeist movement.

As of right admins and mods will label trolls and all their little buddies they will protect from that label. As of now I fundamentally disagree on all grounds of what went on in the Moderators Meeting and what Joseph Peters said do to the fact of primacy do to his lack of sophistication in this matter. With a combination of environmental factors and conditioning that just adds to the affect. It also brings into question what this site is really about? What this movement is really about? Is this site about Pj getting his thoughts out there and has nothing to do with a movement? If I didn’t read correctly this is called the Zeitgeist movement not the PJ and Jacque fan club. Which in fact leads to another question which is Tanktop, is he simply confused at to who he caters to which is more towards PJ or more towards the majority? As PJ pays tanks bills. I can see that being a bit confusing. In that how does tank moderate something like the Zeitgeist movement which he has decided will be just like any other forums at which is something I would normally agree with on other forums but disagree with for the Zeitgeist movement.

The other question to raise is this. Is it possible that PJ or tank want to have some type of level of importance in this movement. At that do they feel threaten if someone else were to take over some things they in fact would feel like they are losing power or importance? If this is true then I disagree with this movement fundamentally because this movement should be about the collective not about the individuals controlling it. Unless they feel like they are the chosen one to lead the group ohh wait isn’t that defined as being a troll? Lol I suppose the question we should ask is this the PJ and tank movement or the Zeitgeist movement that supports the venus project that’s is the collective.

In that I also believe in splinter groups; that groups may be in fact working on different things but have a common goal which would be in this case to change society, eliminate the monetary system etc… Splinter groups worked great for war mongers like Attila the Hun who seemed to be able to gather people together with different beliefs and different backgrounds for a common goal at which was to loot a plunder.

So I suppose I should post up a proposal. My proposal would be that for instance what you define as forum trolls well that’s what you admin and mods define as such. Maybe their needs to be a ranking system where an individual is ranked good, neutral or bad. If your familiar with the video game black and white. Black and white had a system where one could be defined as good neutral or bad. Maybe in this system we could have something similar where people vote if a person is good neutral or bad and be labeled relative to the information given. If the person is labeled good and they have enough good points they get into the GOOD VIP section of the zeitgeist forum, if in fact they are labeled bad and they have enough points they are put into the VIP bad section of the forums, if labeled neutral you are not in any VIP section until you earn the right to be so to say. Now sections that are fair game for both bad, neutral, and good is the learning section and discussion section. Now if a bad users manages to get into a good VIP section of the forums and it’s found out or they do something bad they lose points on their rating. Ratings are not a set fix and can be on disgression by moderator as well as the people voting. I’m sure there are flaws in this idea but again this would be a way to recycle users and redefine them (EX: a bad user can become good and a good user can become bad). Banning wouldn’t be needed for the most part I’m sure there are exceptions but yeah.

I’m done with my spiel I could go on for pages = books but I will not and I hate writing walls of txt as well sorry. If I am defined as a troll then I am but yeah that’s just my thoughts on the situation in general it’s not productive to bann trolls.

FYI: was the intent of the post that got me banned off the Zeitgeist movement to harm anybody? My answer is definitely not ;/ if anything it’s = to a political funny you see in the newspaper to get people admins, mod thinking. Is this NEW post made to attack anybody? Again no just to make people think as I believe TZM is a bit confusing for everybody.

- Bill Matriark [/b]

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_effect<br /> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation<br /> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24352.htm

anticultist I'm about to post a reaction in the Grits topic. yes I understand this is not the tmz/venus project. I merly wanted to post up the facts on primacy, in my new post I'm making I'm going to link it to here without having to copy/paste this information in that forum thread making it huge. I think the points on primacy and new paradigms are interesting.

I do not want anybody to go into defense. My intent is not to defend Grits once so ever is that's how it's perceived that's not my intention. To be honest I have a different way of thinking about people in general and decided to expose this information in this environment nothing more. I'm not going on the offense trying to change peoples ideals and beliefs because that is futile and if I was every attempting that well i'd never attempt that it's a waist of time. I suppose I'm exposing people to the flaws of the human mind if at that and inoculating people in a new understanding about themselves and how they reach decisions. Be it whose a troll and who isn't or whatever.

Again I'm not trying to defend grits once so ever merely presenting information on how information can be twisted/interpreted. The internet is definitely not serious business even though at times one can be caught up in the stupidity of it.

If Grits acted the same way with the ZGM as he recently did here I think them banning him is perfectly reasonable.

If I acted like he does I'd expect to be banned everywhere as well.

Like I said I mentioned his behaviour first.

wat wat

heh yeah this pertained toward tmz a bit more really pay attention towards

"Next question is…. Billll okay your stuff sounds logically maybe that’s why we are not attracting a lot of users to the site and the number of people willing to go with this movement is dramatically dropping, why?"

site being tmz

I stand by my statement.