Did Mod cause the collapse of evcforum?

Isn't this thread serving solely to stir up the same sort of shitstorm that resulted in the Great Purge?Does discussion of past moderation actions really serve to do anything other than stir up useless drama? I mean, I don't see any recent moderation activities that fill me with righteous fury.

I just wanted to chime in and say that I have very good confidence in the ability of the current moderation staff to fairly and objectively moderate to the degree that such fairness is practically possible.This may come as a shock, but occasionally the "fair" action is not the action that best benefits the health of a discussion board. After all, an eye for an eye is fair, but it tends to leave everyone blind in the end.Healthy discussion requires more than a single viewpoint. Here at EvC, Percy and the others try their best to ensure that the board does not degenerate into various members preaching to the choir. It often means allowing people to express views that the moderators don't necessarily personally agree with (or even vehemently despise) to continue to express those views, simply so that there continue to be at least two "sides" available for debate. This doesn't exclusively apply to issuing suspensions - it also means that the moderation staff need to ensure that all sides perceive that they have a chance at a fair shake around here. Sometimes one individual needs to be moderated more harshly, or another less strictly, in order to create that perception.The Purge definitely cost EvC many very good participants. But the board most definitely has not collapsed. There are still many vibrant discussions going on around here, with many participants both old and new. The success of the board, the fact that it hasn't been reduced to either an atheistic circle-jerk where we all talk about how stupid those creationists are, nor an evangelical orgy of Praise God, is due in very large part to our very successful moderation staff.I don't feel the need to agree with every (or even most) of the moderators' decisions. I want a place where I can engage in open debate with a wide variety of perspectives on the subjects of evolution, creation, science, religion, morality, rationality, and anything else interesting that comes to mind, preferably without the fear that I'll be immediately censured for saying something that an individual disagrees with or even finds offensive. I don't get that on other boards, but I do get it here - again, due to our moderation staff.

Suspensions are very often not "punishments" so much as forced time to cool off. We debate very heatedly around here from time to time, and sometimes people need to step back, relax,and remember that we're arguing on the internet here, not determining national policy. Often the people getting too heated can't make that determination for themselves, and so a brief suspension is in order.If anything, I wonder if an earlier 48-hour suspension for all of the people getting their panties in wads to cool off before things got so out of hand would have had better results.

Genetic issues aren't the only reason incest is banned. Technically under such a moral rule, one could get a vasectomy and then fuck his daughter all he wanted. Or just use a condom.I would suggest that the possibility of genetic deformities is not even a primary reason for banning incest. It's not guaranteed, and in fact isn't particularly likely in single generation (but of course the buildup of recessive genes is cumulative in each generation of a constrained gene pool)The primary reason incest is unethical is simply that it most often (not always) tends to constitute an abuse of the trust and love between family members. If a parent sexually abuses a child, the child will often not say "no" for fear of rejection from the parent, of causing the family to be torn apart, of losing the support of the family, and so on. The parent has all of the power, while the child has none, and incestuous relationships therefore typically constitute an abuse of that authority.Even incest between siblings takes advantage of such things - "don't tell mom, or I'll tell about the time you..."There are exceptions where there are no real ethical issues - I recall reading about one couple in Germany who were adopted by separate parents and through a bizarre coincidence managed to fall in love, get married, and have children before discovering that they were actually siblings. None of the kids have any genetic abnormalities, they don't plan on having more kids, and they'd really just like to live their lives in peace (unfortunately the anti-incest laws in Germany were being used to annul their marriage and possibly take away their children, and any further intercourse would of course be illegal as well - not a good situation for people who were in fact acting in good faith).But when you're making a law you can't allow for every conceivable and highly unlikely instance in which the law may not have the intended result. Since the vast majority by far of incestuous relationships don;t fall under any of those special circumstances, it's perfectly reasonable and even morally obligatory to make incest illegal.

Wiki is your friend:

quote:

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In the United States, every state and the District of Columbia have some form of codified incest prohibition.[19] However, individual statutes vary widely. Rhode Island repealed its criminal incest statute in 1989[19], Ohio only targets parental figures[19], and New Jersey does not apply any penalties when both parties are 18 years of age or older.[19] Massachusetts issues a penalty of up to 20 years' imprisonment for those engaging in sexual activities with relatives closer than first cousins[19] and Hawaii up to 5 years in jail for "sexual penetration" with certain blood relatives and in-laws.[19]

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In all states, close blood-relatives that fall under the incest statutes include father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, and in some states, first cousins. Many states also apply incest laws to non-blood relations including step-parents, step-siblings, and in-laws.[20]

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Indeed. Of course, between actual consenting adults, it's rather difficult for the state to even notice let alone enforce unless children are produced.And of course I have no issue with extramarital sex so long as no lying occurs and everyone is cautious with regard to pregnancies and STDs.Necrophilia of one's own spouse (ick!) doesn't necessarily violate any moral rule (under utilitarianism, but possibly under other systems - no absolutes, remember), but keeping a corpse in the home would at least run a public health risk. Assuming you had a perfectly preserved corpse (ick!), and the deceased spouse (ick!) expressed in their will that sexual contact with their corpse (ick!) would be allowed ...I wouldn't want to put you in jail, but I'd reserve the right to say that's disgusting. This is part of the reason laws make poor studies of morality - most of us don't think about it. At all. Even a little. They get as far as "gross!" and that prompts a reaction of "that's wrong, they shouldn't be allowed to do that," and there we go. If questioned, they'll try to rationalize some post-hoc reasons, some of which may even be valid, but the real motivating factor was "gross!"An aversion of dead bodies is instinctual for humans - it causes a direct survivability advantage to remove the dead from living environments simply because of disease. An aversion to necrophilia, therefor, is to be expected along with it. Deviants from that instinctual aversion are...difficult to empathize with.Remember, we don't actually simulate the minds of others. When we try to put ourselves in the shoes of another, what we're really doing is asking our brains, "if we were in this situation, what would our reaction be?" When you think of what a sad person is likely to do, you imagine what you would do if you were sad. But not everyone's mind is identical - as with necrophiliacs (ick!), there are times where imagining oneself in the position of another will simply not come anywhere close to what the other person is thinking, feeling, or likely to do. Imagining yourself having sexual contact with a corpse when you have an instinctual aversion to dead bodies will produce the "ick!" reaction that the necrophiliac simply doesn't have.Again, this is the reason that at some point we all need to grow up from our childhood understanding of the world around us, and actually ask why we believe what we think we believe. Questioning also implies that, when we find out that our reasoning is flawed, we need to be willing to change our minds.Most of all, we need to understand that what works for you and me might not work for others, and that in many cases that's okay. Freedom to conform to the majority is not freedom at all, after all - unless some deviance is allowed, there are no choices. Many people forget this in their outrage against all things icky.