René Descartes

A French philosopher, mathematician and natural scientist. Descartes is considered the founder of modern early modern rationalism.

#RenéDescartes
#Philosophy
#Rationalism
#Cartesianism
#thinkaboutit

Who Gets to Speak On Discord, Who Gets Banned, and Why That’s Always Political in Spaces with No Politics Rules

So, a thing I find very interesting about the fragility of the esteem among chronic Discord users is that it’s common for admins and moderators to ban or make fun of people who leave. Essentially, they’re responding to being rejected or not chosen, so they think it’s reasonable to retaliate

A Discord server I am lurking in has a “no politics” rule and is a religious, esoteric, and philosophical server. What I find very funny about this is that politics is:

“Politics is who gets what, when, and how.”

— Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (1936)

I find it very funny that the most minimal form of being “not political” in a virtual community is a Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ). I was part of an IRC chaos magick channel when I was a teenager, and I submitted to a zine under my old handle (which is not Rayn) when I was 20. No, I’m not going to reveal the name I wrote under, which was published in chaos magick zines back in the day, because I’ve had a bucket of crazies following me around since 2008, with the insane network of anarchists circa 2020 being the latest instance.

ChanServ was a bot used on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) networks to manage channel operations such as bans, who got voiced, and permissions. Think of it as an early, early moderation bot. In an IRC TAZ, everyone who entered got all the permissions from Chanserv, so anyone could ban, voice, unban, deop, or op anyone else. No one had more power than anyone else, so there was minimal negotiation over channel resources. A TAZ is still an inherently political construct; however, it is a minimal political construct because there is minimal negotiation of resources and an equal, random, and chaotic authority structure. That’s not Discord, though.

Discord inherently has a hierarchical system defined by roles, a TOS, and members are expected to abide by the rules of that server. So, when you say there is a no-politics rule on Discord, you are inherently contradicting yourself because Discord is structurally political in how you, as a moderator, interact with others. How people negotiate conversations and interact with each other to access the resources of your Discord server is inherently political.

Discord’s structure makes any “no-politics” rule itself a political act. Moderators exercise power by granting, restricting, or revoking permissions, and that distribution of power is the very politics the rule tries to avoid. So while the intention is to keep discussions “apolitical,” it creates local Discord politics by determining who gets to speak and who gets silenced (e.g., banned, timed out, kicked, or limited to certain channels). A “no politics” rule shifts political dynamics into moderation decisions rather than eliminating them.

What prompted this was me observing a typical pragmatic versus moral realism argument that you’d see in any philosophy course or forum. I’m an academic and a computational scientist, but I don’t try to shut down any arguments with that, because that’s an explicit fallacy and a dishonest, bad-faith tactic.

Technically, I am a biologist. Yes, I have a biology degree and a biotech degree. I also have philosophy, mathematics, and computer science and engineering degrees under my belt. I have to work with people like this on a daily basis, and I find them insufferable, so the last thing I want to do in my free time after looking at stacks of dumbass papers is argue with people on Reddit or Discord when I could be fucking, getting fucked, or spending time with my husband. But, alas, they have no life. Keep in mind, as a computational biologist that reviews a lot of shit, I get paid to argue. These idiots are arguing on the Internet for free! The reason why Redditors, Reddit moderators, and Discord moderators get shat on so much is that all of their labor is unpaid! People with lives don’t take it that seriously!

On to the convo:

A new person in the community defined morals as: morals = {a, b, c} exhaustively. An established member of that community responded that, for them, morals are either {x, y, z…}, non-exhaustive and polymorphic, or not inherently defined by the tradition itself but supplied externally by the individual. The new person replied, effectively, “According to my definition of a, b, c, that still constitutes a moral framework.” An established member who is also a scientist pushed back as if no definition of morals had been proposed at all, when in actuality they were disagreeing with the scope and applicability of the given definition, not the act of defining itself.

By the way, the symbolic way I’m defining this is ambiguous. You have no clue what anything is; however, it is ontologically defined, and the logic makes sense. That is the problem. An ontological definition was given, so arguing that no definition was proposed—simply because they disagreed with it—is in bad faith. Personally, I am a constructivist, poststructuralist, pragmatist, instrumentalist, and anti-realist, so I don’t care too much about the realism of the ontological propositions and expressions. I am pointing out logical mistakes.

This is especially egregious when individuals rely on their authority in a domain where their degree is not pertinent. A well-known issue with scientists is that their curiosity can outstrip their morality. Essentially, an ethics board composed mostly of scientists without degrees in ethics, law, or philosophy will make poor decisions and saturate the political sphere they occupy with advocates and lobbyists to bend laws to their interests. Therefore, a board with no philosophers is pretty sinister.

Morals and ethics are philosophical problems. To my knowledge, many people who sit on ethics boards that seriously address ethical issues have philosophy, and not just astronomy, degrees. Relevant degrees include psychology, sociology, theology, philosophy, etc. For example, I have a philosophy degree, so I am technically qualified and credentialed by a university to have these discussions. An astronomy degree alone does not make someone qualified to discuss ethics—maybe if they also had a theology degree?

The thing I find really funny about this group is that they avoid dilemmas. Morals and ethics are developed through ethical dilemmas. Their response to any type of dilemma is to exert their local authority and exclude, deny, or shut down conversations.

The difference between science and philosophy is that science is a little less messy and more defined. We can all see something and agree on what we see, right? The difference with philosophical questions and moral dilemmas is that they are relatively open-ended and ambiguous. It’s really amusing to me how those who try to argue philosophy are uncomfortable with indefinite answers that are open to interpretation.

It’s just funny how they tacitly assume that they are the only academics in their field in existence and that their opinion on things is the consensus, especially on metaphysical issues where there is no consensus. No human knows what the right thing to do is all the time. It’s great to know that they have somehow achieved a level of inhuman perfection.

www.honest-broker.com/p/25-proposi... 1/Well it is a Friday-so why not! Here is something to aspire to: the rise of #romanticism and fall of #rationalism I am totally into making this a reality. My contribution is to write stories that imagine how this could become real and what it could look like

25 Propositions about the New ...

https://www.honest-broker.com/p/25-propositions-about-the-new-romanticism

Well it is a Friday - so why not! Here is something to aspire to: the rise of #romanticism and fall of #rationalism

While I am totally into making this a reality and my contribution is to write stories that imagine how this could become reality and what it could look like, the thing that Ted Gioia doesn't acknowledge in his dreaming is the ticking clock of #climatechange and the threat to #survival of hundreds of millions in the coming years.

I grew up in a community full of traditional evangelicals all around me, and have been that way since, what with core tenets and middle-of-the-road biblical hermeneutics. The only thing that has changed over the past few years is my politics, for which I credit my discovering #CriticalThinking. That puts me at odds with my clan politically, but I tell you, nothing is more liberating than becoming enlightened. Everyone is invited.

#enlightenment #liberalism #libertarianism #rationalism #reason

Roko's Basilisk, but replaced with an incompetent, malevolent Donald #Trump as president in a future timeline totally proves just how stupid both the actual present and past of #uspol has really been. Even #Rationalism filled up with really stupid people during this #daft era. RFK Jr, became secretary of HHS, and conservative men started wacking off with beef tallow. And depression creating #tariffs became the magical thinking #economic policy. "May you live in stupid times" said nobody, ever.

7/ And that is why I am not laughing at my absurdity, but at the absurdity of myself. It isn't just "I am in an absurd situation," but "I am the absurd situation."

#philosophy #existentialism #determinism #Rationalism

1/ "The first thing which constitutes the actual being of a human Mind is nothing but the idea of a singular thing which actually exist."

- P11: Ethics, Spinoza

#Philosophy #Determinism #Rationalism

n.1/
You work the same way. You are a natural being automatically striving for things that make you feel more powerful and alive. Those things are what you then call "good." You are pursuing them because of your internal, natural drive.

#Rationalism #Ethics #Psychology #Desire

Periyar might be a coward who did not attack Islam, Sikhs & Christianity. This doesn't make all rationalists a coward.

In fact, only trying to wipe off the ignorance of Hindus, and keeping Muslims, Christians and Sikhs in the darkness of religion, is a terrible harm he inflicted on them.

#Tamil #Rationalism #Religion #Islam #Christianity #Sikhism

Writing and speaking can be used/mistreated/instumentalised/weaponised "not to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience newspapers, news, proceed by redundancy, in that they tell us what we ‘must’ think, retain, expect, etc. language is neither informational nor communicational. It is not the communication of information but something quite different: the transmission of order-words, either from one statement to another or within each statement, insofar as each statement accomplishes an act and the act is accomplished in the statement.”

― Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, in "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia" @ben

#criticalTheory #communication #media #knowledge #publicOpinion #epistemology #agnotology #rationalism #reason #truth #wordsMatter #semiotics #Deleuze #Guattari #Capitalism #quote #quotes #FrenchTheory #subjugate

Too much sadness, too much terror;

#TLcleanse

There is a reason my dog is named “Linus” — “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” is one of the most beautiful examples of Linus Van Pelt being an amazing philosopher from the [IMO] #Spinoza school.

#DogsOfMastodon #philosophy #enlightenment #rationalism #art #comics #SocialCommentary #PoliticalCommentary #CharlesMSchulz

THE "CLAUDE BOYS" www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibPy... #android_dream #philosphy #engineering #ai #science #psychology #errtlings #autonomy #society #law #politics #society #rationalism

This Terrifying Ideology has I...

Latest Video from The Mob Reporter:
Probing the #Trans #Vegan #Tech #Cult That's Making Global #Headlines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBwHKvHhoyc
#Zizians #Rationalism #TrueCrime #AI

“Language is not made to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience newspapers, news, proceed by redundancy, in that they tell us what we ‘must’ think, retain, expect, etc. language is neither informational nor communicational. It is not the communication of information but something quite different: the transmission of order-words, either from one statement to another or within each statement, insofar as each statement accomplishes an act and the act is accomplished in the statement.”

― Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, in "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia"

#criticalTheory #communication #media #knowledge #publicOpinion #epistemology #agnotology #rationalism #reason #truth #wordsMatter #semiotics #Deleuze #Guattari #Capitalism #quote #quotes #FrenchTheory

"To say something factually correct is already to have an #opinion on what to do with it."

Lauréline #Fontaine: "In a society of law built since the end of the Middle Ages around the protection of trade and exchange, truth has progressively acquired the status of a social necessity: it excludes uncertainty and produces the trust necessary for the maintenance and development of exchanges."

"The category of truth in the social space is not - in fact - the object of a monopoly (including in a scientific community tightly bound around certain protocols intended to produce it): the category of #truth is a very liberal practice, or even neo-liberal to use a paradigm of analysis that has become commonplace today. It is the object of a form of permanent competition, depending on the means available to some and others to appropriate it or reveal it."

fr https://www.ledroitdelafontaine.fr/entretien-sur-la-verite-en-democratie/

#communication #media #knowledge #publicOpinion #epistemology #agnotology #rationalism #reason #intelligence #truth #wordsMatter #democracy

Ganesh chaturthi celebrations!

Historically, Indians have never stuck with a single religion. We have moved along and cross worshipped.

But we have always been spiritual, which rationalists like me are trying to break by kicking in logic into people's heads.

#India #Religion #Hinduism #Islam #Spirituality #Rationalism #GaneshChaturthi

🥳 Oh, look! A spicy stew of buzzwords - transgender ideology, #rationalism, and #veganism - mixed into a deliciously absurd "death cult." 🍽️ Because clearly, when you run out of real news, it's time to stir the pot with sensationalist gibberish. 🤡
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/16/inside-the-trans-vegan-death-cult/ #transgenderideology #deathcult #sensationalism #HackerNews #ngated