Re: From the moderator: My decision about Joe Dees

From: Othman Mohamed (othman.mohamed@muhc.mcgill.ca)
Date: Mon 22 Dec 2003 - 18:42:10 GMT

  • Next message: Bjorn Stadil: "Re: [subscribe] Re: From the moderator: My decision about Joe Dees"

    Hi all,

    I have been follwing this list for over a year now. I noticed that some times it gets out of hand and that certain, seemingly non-memetic subjects, become dominant for quite some time. In particular, what Joe was doing and how he was trying to force his way of thinking strongly on others. The question is what to do with him in this case? In my opinion, I think he should be left to express himself as he pleases. Honestly, I have read and enjoyed a lot of what Joe was posting. Similarly, however, I deleted even more of his posts without even opening them. So, although I enjoyed some of his posts, I had the choice of deleting the rest of them and so is everyone. I think it would be better if everyone just delete the posts that she/he doesn't like rather than banning someone else from expressing her/himself. There is something about censorship that gives me the creep and I just don't like it. Althought the moderator has come up with some solution to keep Joe around, I still consider that a censorship and I don't think it is really needed. Hey I think we could all spare a second or two deleting stuff we don't like in order to let freedom of expression flourish. In fact we could look to what Joe was doing as a perfect case in which memes are caught in action. It provides a perfect example of how a certain meme(s) can control someone's mind and make him actively go out and try to spread those memes by trying, using all possible means, to infect as many other minds as possible. Of course it is all for the benefit of those memes and Joe's mind is just a tool they are using to propagate themselves. I think we should let Joe participate as before and just use our judgement each time he (or anyone else for that matter) posts and decide at any particular time of what kind of memes we would like to give some room in our minds and which we are not. In my opinion, this is better than just blocking those memes out all the time.

    Othman

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