Aw, ****, man, I didn't even think about hopping into my time machine to go debate bruce in the past. Brilliant ****ing idea, bro!

I'm just sitting here wondering about how I missed the time when mathematicians became these demigods that speak in ways above our understanding, and because of this are immune from our critiques.

I guess I must be dumb because they are, at the very least, enabling a racist. Putting him in a position of leadership is condoning his racism and I'm perfectly fine with saying that makes them participants in racism. I would think only racists would be okay with racists representing them.

The "he just talked about Mexicans in a negative way but that's not racism" makes me think Mason is an actual racist though.

How can you possibly say that? I've asked people to provide evidence for their claims, and in every single case they've refused to do so.

The debate isn't being stopped because someone called bruce a racist. The debate stops because bruce, foldn, masque, etc are actually incapable of continuing once they are actually expected to provide evidence.

Lol, you are way better than me in playing AKo. You think that the racist thing = the point they were making. Fair enough. So debate that then. You mischaracterized the point they were making to an extend I can't really think you are serious about this.

Apparently, yes. Not all, of course.

That isn't what he said though.

Why am I prevented from criticizing Bruce's recent posts if I didn't criticize his posts from years ago in a forum I don't read regularly, don't purport to read regularly, and that I have no obligation to read regularly? I can debate the recent and historic posts on their own merit now, and I have done so in a detailed fashion.

Bruce was criticized in the SMP thread. Tom quoted some posts from Bruce and linked to the SMP precisely so people could read the whole thread and engage Bruce there. Politics regulars did exactly that! Here's what Bruce had to say on the matter when Politics regulars decided to engage him in SMP:

Insults, not dialog. After that, Bruce elected to post in other forums to engage people. Why do we need to go to SMP if he's talking with us in Politics and Unchained and ATF?

Finally, you've been repeatedly asked for links to posts that would put Bruce's posts in a better context for us, and none have been provided. Why should we take you at your word that there's a long, rich history of Bruce being a non-racist contrarian when we go look at old posts in SMP and find a long history of Bruce taking disgusting, racist positions on slavery and other subjects and never the opposite? Surely you can link us to a thread in which Bruce discusses racial issues in a manner that would provide a healthy context if there are so many in that forum's history.

He's done this before. It probably really is a meds issue.

Pvn, at the moment you noticed right before the "incident" and even now its not too late to go to these threads and debate him when he gets back if he gets back. Thats what real men and women with dignity and confidence do. The rest are populist garbage to win elections mob style that i frankly dont want to see from democrats.

There's a lot of frustration to go round.

Your approach throughout has been admirable but its not representative of how this fiasco has played out. Far too many have no interest in the arguments or being remotely fair, they happily use any possible ammunition any way they can. That's become normal practice from a few but its been shocking to see how some mods have joined in so carelessly. Even now still throwing out ill-considered accusations of racism.

I cringed at some of what Bruce did. We can look at Mat for who I have a lot of sympathy (even before I heard about the back) and we can look to Mason to try to sort it out but there needs to be some responsibility by us as well, especially mods.

Well, no. If they have a problem staying on target, that's probably them being bad at debating on the internet.

No, dealing with trolls and debating aren't the same thing.

Mason,

again, this call for compromise really sounds tone deaf. The people complaining about Bruce universally accepted Mat's initial decision to do nothing and basically moved on. Bruce himself is the one that couldn't let sleeping dogs lie and had to go into full-on meltdown mode in the mod forum, and it was #teambruce that started this thread.

Calling out racists is fun
Bruce is a racist

Therefore Bruce taking his ball and going home unfairly deprives us of entertainment value.

More great rational arguments... "that's what real men do!"

Nice try, but you swung and missed yet again, on several basic levels.

I would point out all the ways your point is irrelevant, wrong, and emotional rage, but why bother? It's not like you'll comprehend any of the points anyway because you're on a crusade and won't be bothered with such baggage as rational arguments.

Hm.
a) I accept that those actually being accused of racism should bare the burden of proof just because I try to be sensitive about my own biases regarding the "correct" definition.

b) I actually think, they provided evidence. It is maybe not the kind of evidence you expect.

Lol, **** you are right I missed that one. I tried to be nice.

This is clearly the most accurate description of site policy. Its your house and your call, but IMO terms of service and forum rules should be correctly stated.

As you note here, 2+2 policy is that racially objectionable posts are not blanket banned but are tolerated as long as other positive contributions from the poster outweigh the drawbacks of racially objectionable posts by said poster.

Forum rules/TOS should reflect that reality rather than pretending that there is a blanket ban.

Mason,

One more thing. Bruce's problem is NOT "extreme logic". It's clearly that he lets emotion control his actions. Extreme logic didn't cause him to threaten moderator action out of his forum. Extreme logic didn't cause him to send me a clumsily worded PM threat. Extreme logic didn't cause him to do whatever he did in the mod forum. Extreme logic didn't cause him to throw misogynistic and homophobic slurs at people who disagree with him.

There exist actions between the extremes of doing nothing and removing him as a mod. Permanently de-greening Bruce is not the only way to not be condoning racism.

It would be a good start though

The reference is either a Douglas MacArthur quote or a reference to the movie The Princess Bride.

Since Asiannit isn't really well-known for his sense of humor and only the first advocated for genocide, it was probably the former.

I never saw bruce respond to mutliple requests for him to provide some stats or evidence for his "black kids get shot in proportion to the crimes they commit" post. If you can point me to one I would appreciate it.

Foldn didn't just ignore requests for evidence, he actually went so far as to proclaim that such evidence wasn't necessary because he saw a black kid walk in the middle of the street once, so it was just obvious that he was right, and we should just accept it unquestioningly.

I do not think that this exist. Just noting it for a later debate.

Saying they don't think many of his posts are racist is one thing. Saying they're going to overlook what they admit are racist posts because he helps people with math and won't do that as a nongreen is totally different though. Not to mention threatening to abuse his power and alienating other mods.

We'll overlook the funny notion that he won't post if screen name isn't a special color for now.