The apolitical label.

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

1 hour ago, zurew said:

I think one relevant question here is that ,what are we trying to achieve by banning or label people as 'apolitical'. I don't think the labeling part has much of a usage, but the banning part could be used if the standards are applied and set well.

Honestly, if i would have total control over this forum, i wouldn't ban based on differing views, i would rather ban bad faith and high level of dismissiveness. I would also encourage people to use occam's razor when it comes to making sense of political issues and maybe i would create a subforum where more speculation is allowed.

   I understand that we are banning temporarily users and ascribing the label 'apolitical' as a warning to other users not to engage with what's considered 'toxic' behavior in this forum. The main issue though, is that there's nothing inherent  to the meaning of 'apolitical' that suggests you are toxic and should be temporarily banned from the sub forum. We are literally ascribing meanings of 'toxic' and 'conspiratorial' to 'apolitical' when no such meanings had existed. We are basically capping at 'apolitical' so hard, and doing this word a disservice in this community.

   For example, if you asked me a political question, I would give an apolitical answer that is at stage yellow, and run through various answers addressing it at different cognitive patterns, morals, personalities, life experiences and different states, describe you how relevant systems would get effected and so on. For something specific, like my political views of animal welfare, my apolitical take would be: "I look after my home pet, I think that if you cared about animals, that's great. I remember riding a horse, and giving it an apple. I also like ice scream, I have a really good animal drawing, I find them cute.", and so on, you know, apolitical statements that are not charged for or against, like, common sense responses from those who either don't care about politics, are not caught in this narrative and political and ideological warfare! What I consider not an apolitical answer to animal welfare would be like: "Well, animals raised in the farms are all right, nothing to worry about, and they are looked after" kind of a stage blue/orange denial and distortion response, and a stage green response would be like: "We gotta free the cows! They are abusing the animals! They are making them sick! they are deforesting the tree! Go fund the anti farm movement! #endanimalcruelty!", you know, a very strong activist type of answers. "Bootstrap yourself, you are lazy. the earth is round." stage blue/orange response to an economic issue and common sense world frame. "Everyone struggling needs welfare, for all, no matter what you are. The earth is flat. screw the establishment.", stage green replies to an economic issue, and what the world could be, flat, although that modal is mostly stage purple/blue. What I'm getting at with these inorganized examples of different value systems, is that 'apolitical' is like a chill and cool person to me, whose non-partisan and outside the box thinking, that's not too charged at either extremes. I'm sorry, but labelling a person as 'apolitical' is not invoking an image of a radicalized MAGA QuAnnon person, it's manifesting a cool, calm, cucumber like person, just chill, you know?

   I think we either need a better label, or get rid of this labelling system. Otherwise, someone smarter and more powerful than me, is gonna point out how ridiculous you look by misidentifying a person under the label 'apolitical'.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Danioover9000

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

   It's like if I labelled you as 'blue', is that accurate to you? And do you think it as the literal meaning of 'blue', and other words or representations of reality that match the qualia of 'blue'? Feels bad? Now, what if I started applying 'blue' to 100 and more users? And I'm doing this thinking they would think green and a dinosaur, and an ice scream, and stop wanting cars and cookies instead?

   Can you feel the inaccuracy of what I'm describing? What missing?

   That's what I'm getting at.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Danioover9000

[zurew]

10 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

   I understand that we are banning temporarily users and ascribing the label 'apolitical' as a warning to other users not to engage with what's considered 'toxic' behavior in this forum.

 Can you feel the inaccuracy of what I'm describing? What missing?

I personally think the labeling part isn't necessary and users could be informed about what is allowed to do and what is not through the guidelines. If they read it,then they will know what they are not allowed to do and i think that would be one of the easiest way to "solve" this confusion issue.

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

9 hours ago, zurew said:

I personally think the labeling part isn't necessary and users could be informed about what is allowed to do and what is not through the guidelines. If they read it,then they will know what they are not allowed to do and i think that would be one of the easiest way to "solve" this confusion issue.

   I agree, that if all users read and follow the guidelines, then we don't need a labelling system or a warning system. However, it's unrealistic, as some users still bend and sometimes break guidelines, so those systems must be enforced to some degree.

   So, taking into account some users will write things that are closer in meaning to 'toxic', we therefore arrive, again, to the main issue: Is it justified to label 'apolitical', when it's definitions don't contain definitions of 'toxic'? Also, do we need to make whatever label we decide, visible to other users?

[zurew]

26 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

However, it's unrealistic, as some users still bend and sometimes break guidelines, so those systems must be enforced to some degree.

I think this is not that big of a problem. If they don't read the guidelines they will be forced to read it after they will be temporarily banned from this section of the forum or after they get a warning point. People will learn from their mistakes.

Also, if people don't read the guidelines why would they care about a label?

Edited August 17, 2022 by zurew

[Danioover9000]

@zurew

40 minutes ago, zurew said:

I think this is not that big of a problem. If they don't read the guidelines they will be forced to read it after they will be temporarily banned from this section of the forum or after they get a warning point. People will learn from their mistakes.

Also, if people don't read the guidelines why would they care about a label?

   Well, I am guessing they would care, if they love their profile pic or what have you. I mean, this happened, outside this context, to a few gamers that have cheated, the devs would have their MMORPG character wear a traffic cone on their head that says "Stupid", and that feature stays with them by the way.

   Is the label temporary or permanent? What would be a better label to you, other than 'apolitical'?