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Messenger: JAH Child Sent: 7/6/2022 11:25:45 PM
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Love + Honor Astral Empress
In a way yes they have to be removed from the forum so that useful reasonings can take place.
I'm not sure in general at what point do rights of freedom of speech ever truly warrant being removed as in a person being jailed or imprisoned or injured etc or even killed for what they say, there is certainly a line but where is the line I am not sure. To an extent I do think people have the right to say offensive things that I don't want to hear. Just kind of depends on what is their motive what are they trying to accomplish, are they causing any harm, just like everything in life each situation is different.
The forum removing trolls is quite different from removing the freedom of speech in general of that individual.. the guy still has his youtube to keep posting videos.. yet as IPX did point out that kind of isolation might exacerbate the problem because we ignored him permanently but someone else who is on his state of mind will visit his youtube and get all hyped up by the things he is angry about and that really has done nothing to deescalate..
Yet I'm not blaming anyone for removing the trolls, only saying... this is a tricky even precarious situation and it's hard to know exactly how to approach these problems.



Messenger: astral empress Sent: 7/7/2022 1:10:10 AM
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blessed love JAH Child

yes i agree that taking troll posts off the forum is very different from removing freedom of speech in general from an individual, in my post i meant the work GARVEYS AFRICA has done

it sounds like you are saying there may be a missed opportunity to educate the agent. my opinion is his behavior has shown he is not interested in education n i feel the risk of a missed education opportunity for one person is worth preventing many people from being exposed to something that on 6/30/2022 he referred to as a "white supermacist" movement!"

agents seem to exploit peoples desire to do good n educate others, sometimes i wonder if they strategically waste the energy of the best educators. maybe this is the "same ideas sprouted again and again" the i referred to <3


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 7/7/2022 9:41:07 AM
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@JAH Child

You are exactly on point. We have to think chess not checkers. In other words, we have to think several moves ahead and you just demonstrated exactly what that looks like. So thank you.

The best way to fight free speech we disagree with is with free speech. A lot of people in society don't feel heard by the mainstream or by the educated or by those they disagree with. So where do they go? Well what happens when you can't find someone to date by going to your local library, grocery store, etc.? People use the internet. And by using the internet you are almost guaranteed to find people that think just like you and are looking for what you're looking for. And so this creates echo chambers where we are preaching to our choir and they to theirs. I personally enjoy engaging in respectful disagreement and debate because I think that there is a certain kind of conflict that allows positive growth and change.

It's also true that everyone isn't going to listen and some agents will simply ignore all reason and simply post their agenda. But I think each one of them should be given an opportunity to see how well they can go back and forth. The agents who can't be reached will ignore any argument they can't deal with and quickly go on the offense or simply change the subject or distract in some other way. Try to get them to talk about themselves like a normal person. If the agent is here to do a job and not actually engage then talking to them will be more like talking to Alexa or Siri. You won't really get anywhere because they won't let you talk to THEM, only the mask they are wearing. And it might expose them faster by trying to have real conversations with them that explore their life and personality than challenging them on their political aims and alignments.

Do I care that someone is a white republican? Not really. Republicans have 'some' ideas I can agree with. So does everyone else. The problem is usually when you combine certain groups: like a person being both white and republican... it doesn't guarantee anything but does make it more likely that if they're here they are probably on the more extreme end of the spectrum because republicans are conservatives and for many white people what they are trying to conserve is white culture and white power. A black republican is simply unwittingly helping them. But is a person somehow wrong for being republican? No. But after they make it obvious that they are, let's probe deeper. Let's talk about WHY they are republican, not why other people should be republicans. Let them feel heard. Let them feel like their thoughts and feelings matter. Some people let a gun be their voice because no one will hear them otherwise. I will listen to anyone, at least until I get bored. Even the devil has a story and it might be better than you think.

They want to talk about how "liberals are pedophiles". But do they say much positive about republicans? No. And that reveals their strategy. So what I'm suggesting is that we start being more strategic, as a community, and not coddle anyone but engage them in specific threads, not letting them take over every conversation, but keeping those conversations quarantined so that reasoning in other threads can continue. And anything they say in the wrong topic GA can just hide it until they are trained to stop doing that. And maybe there's a new rule that if they make X number of attempts to derail a topic that has nothing to do with what they're adding THEN they get banned. Because we also do want to put too much work on GA to constantly police these agents.


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 7/7/2022 11:08:04 AM
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I also want to say...

Any attempts we make are not hopeless. No, it may not work on everyone but there is a powerful story of how a black man befriended members of the KKK because he couldn't understand how they could hate him when they never even met him.

https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes

I consider this Daryl Davis to be a straight-up hero and an inspiration. We tend to (and it's understandable) just treat them according what we believe they deserve because it's their fault for making themselves our enemies. We didn't do anything to them to earn their hatred.

Reggae music is very powerful. And in hearing it, it makes a lot of white people more conscious and understanding. Reggae music is an expression of love and humanity that people of all colors can relate to. And I think it is often that which makes them interested in Rastafari for being able to produce such a thing.

I think the spirit of Rastafari is the healing of the nations (plural). People have needs. One of those needs is inclusion. So when people feel excluded they're hurt by that. Black people often exclude whites because we don't trust them in general. Once we get to know one we treat that person as an individual and love and respect them as such. And we can have real conversations with them because we have that basis of mutual respect. A lot of white people don't see this because that was never them. They never got "picked" to be one of these individuals who we accepted as such. But they still need to be included. They still need a team, a community; a greater organism to belong to.

And so what I'm saying is that if we don't reach them and show them that we can accept them as an individual in spite of our general lack of trust for the continued actions of white supremacy, maybe they won't feel the need to seek inclusion from those who hate. I think that's why Daryl Davis was successful. It's not just that he is just so good of a friend, but that a lot of these people never really wanted to be "that guy". They just wanted to fit in. So as much as I'm willing to go after an agent to prevent them from doing more harm than good, I'm also willing to treat them as individuals who I can accept and respect if they can reciprocate.


Messenger: GARVEYS AFRICA Sent: 7/7/2022 6:36:50 PM
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Re: Freewize of speech

I dont think the I dem are accusing me of this but i do rarely delete posts. The type of posts i delete are the robot advertisement posts or spam or posts that are so disturbed such as 'masterbating into a dogs anus' from our Australian agent. I could always leave them there and 'hide' them instead.... Other threads like the ones about relationships or christmas i will comment in and post my thoughts of disapproval but never hide or delete.

Not sure how the other moderators do it and im open for critique.

Blessed love Iahs


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 7/8/2022 10:25:26 AM
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@GA

moderation is often a thankless job.

Thank you for the way you moderate this forum.


Messenger: JAH Child Sent: 7/10/2022 5:19:36 PM
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Yes beloveds

Astral Empress I agree that he and probably most trolls are not open to learning or changing, I guess all we can do is try and see how they respond and if they are not receptive, then I agree removing them is better for the forum as a whole. It definitely can be a waste of energy otherwise and I personally have a limit to that... Yes as IPX says debates can be healthy and allow us to grow but the main thing is respect, without that a debate is not going anywhere productive...

IPX Ninja I notice the I was trying to engage FGM in a personal discussion about what fuels him against pedophilia... I think the I really did that in an honest way and like the I said try to humanize them... while that post was added after he was removed from the forum so he could never respond... yet it was taken as a joke by another member of the forum which did quite shock me actually, first and foremost because making fun of someone for having been molested, whether they really were or not, is not funny at all, and anyone who experienced it would know that but really everyone else should know it too...

And yes I agree, give thankhs Garveys Africa I do think the I have done very well as a moderator and also well to engage ones in respectful debate. It was definitely not intended as a criticism.
It's just worth discussing I think as part of the Agents topic, to what extent do we try and educate or show a positive influence to them and strategies to do so.
But yeah I think the I have a great instinct GA and I would trust the I with making those decisions, I don't think I have other suggestions or even to set a X number of harrassments and they are banned, I think each situation is different and has to be judged individually..

Give thankhs Iyahs
Selah say I Love


Messenger: IPXninja Sent: 7/11/2022 8:44:59 AM
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Yes, for the record, that line of questioning was not intended as a joke. A lot of people out there are thinking more and more about pedophilia as if it's a new fad diet. But there are real victims and there are plenty of people who grow up masking a hatred in their hearts because of something that happened to them and it may come out in ways that seem or are irrational.


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