Comment on The Belmont Club "Disruption"

The ability of a troll to consume bandwidth, emotional space, time and space on a page is a real threat. We need to consider the nature of the threat, what their goals are, how we can respond to protect ourselves and at the same time preserve the forum. This is going to get worse. Link this thread and the last one. The Enemy or enemies want to preempt our defenses by getting us to abandon the field, to self censor ourselves and assure them that we will not contest the battlefield of ideas or communicate with each other. Personally I would rather spend an hour arguing the virtues of German Cheese with Marie Claude than watching a troll perform onanism. We do need to remember that we come here to learn and if we seal ourselves off from intelligent disagreement then we become an echo chamber and the forum dies. That would please those who are malicious.

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The simply Ignore the troll argument is necessary but insufficient because the troll does occupy physical space on the screen and bandwidth that can block access. We need a technical solution to identify and sequester and then refer for blocking.

It is going to get worse. The Internet, the crown jewel of technology and the foundation of the economy of the 21st century, was just given away by Obama to international regulators. Think of Unesco and the UN Human Rights Commission being given the keys to the First Amendment and whatever business is still around for you and yours to work in in 10 years. Giving away, correction stealing, GM was a straight Chicago style payoff to supporters and given that it was an old and declining industry that was reprehensible but survivable. The loss of the Internet, the turning it over to the tender administrations of people with the moral stature of Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA, is a far more serious blow. Consider who actually built this technical marvel and who will get to control it. The Internet is largely the work of Americans and Israelis with significant help from free Chinese, English, Italians, Dutch and some Hungarian exiles. Almost the same groups created the atomic age that sustained American power and an unprecedented expansion of global wealth, health and creativity. Now the enemies of all that are being given the power to shut it all down.

Horrible news from Ft Hood. Never doubt the efficacy of prayer.