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Author Topic: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)  (Read 306652 times)

Battlemaster
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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1875 on: June 28, 2022, 04:57:25 AM »
Yeah, Skotos vanished a while back. And I'll have you know I still play on a couple MU*'s, sonny. (shakes cane menacingly)

But jokes aside, I'm still wondering what pays their bills, aside from the begging. I grant running a forum isn't exactly bank-breaking these days, but...

Wow, skrotos is gone? What a truly insignificant event.

Personally I think Rupert Murdoch is funding rpg.net as it makes the left look bad.
Fuck the fascist right and the fascist left.

jeff37923

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1876 on: June 28, 2022, 05:56:31 AM »
Sigh. Jeff I keep hoping a covid virus with your name on it ends up tettibg drawn into that ever open mouth of yours. You do nothing but throw shit into the world and it would be a less awful place if you were removed from it.

Woah. Jeff talks shit like everyone else, but he isn't THAT guy! (and he hates me - so my defending him should be a clue you might be off base). Maybe you just need to talk gaming with him.

You are full of more shit than a Christmas Turkey....

Yaaaawwwnnnn.


Seriouwky, dude,  die already. You're just s boring shit throwing troll.

Who made you cry, oh flaccid one.
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Ghostmaker

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1877 on: June 28, 2022, 11:04:05 AM »
Thou shalt not point out the elephant in the room.

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/rivendellboy-receives-a-%F0%9F%9A%AB-thirty-day-ban-and-permanent-uk-and-us-politics-topic-ban-hostile-posting-indistinguishable-from-trolling.898871/

I may disagree with Rivendellboy on policy, but he is absolutely right. The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift. And now their toy has been taken away from them.

But we can't have meaningful self-reflection on TBP, and so off to the gulag Rivendellboy goes.

bromides

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1878 on: June 28, 2022, 11:50:34 AM »
Asking the Democrats to legislate rather than rule by fiat seems impossible these days. DACA was not an Act, despite the deceptive acronym, and so it's no wonder the executive orders were rescinded. Obama could have fixed that one also... but that's never the intent of these tyrants. They expect to rule by fiat, with Democracy being a sham on top of their rule.

I mean... fking Hamurabi figured this out at the dawn of civilization. You fking codify your law so shit don't break down later. Ruling by fiat is a shitty idea. If it can be made a law, then make a law. Don't do this kind of thing if it's just and it's deserved. Otherwise, it ought to be stricken from the record and replaced by actual laws, with the support and actual consent of the governed.

Roe v Wade was just another example of something that they could never justify with actual law, and used to justify our extremist views on abortion (which far exceed most of the rest of the civilized world). It reminds me of the border situation, how our wokeness ended up infesting European law and creating equally disastrous situations in the EMEA region as there are in the US-Mexico cross-border region. Instead of striking a reasonable compromise over abortion in a national legislation, they just fkd up again with extremist/indefensible positions on a social topic that they ought to have managed via legislation.

Fkking Hamurabi, you geniuses. Study history or something. Fk me, these tyrants are so stupid, it's fking painful.

The border situation... Racism is incredibly bad, and race infests border policies, but lawlessness is an even worse form of awful, IMO. The lawless border than creates more racism since people end up losing faith in whatever's left of governance.

...

RPGnet just astounds me with their mimicry of that rule-by-fiat tyranny, which progressives/wokes love so much.

Yes, the Right also devolves into tyranny (as does any government), but it's particularly bad with the Left right now. Everything they said about Trump & tyranny is actually more true of Democrats.

rgalex

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1879 on: June 28, 2022, 12:29:08 PM »
Thou shalt not point out the elephant in the room.

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/rivendellboy-receives-a-%F0%9F%9A%AB-thirty-day-ban-and-permanent-uk-and-us-politics-topic-ban-hostile-posting-indistinguishable-from-trolling.898871/

I may disagree with Rivendellboy on policy, but he is absolutely right. The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift. And now their toy has been taken away from them.

But we can't have meaningful self-reflection on TBP, and so off to the gulag Rivendellboy goes.

I like the part where they say "You also repeatedly inject discussions of US politics in threads where they are not relevant."

I thought one of their core beliefs was that everything is political.  That's how they justify all the BS on the RPG side of the forums.  How many game threads have been derailed by someone all of a sudden bringing up irrelevant political aspect X?

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1880 on: June 28, 2022, 04:54:21 PM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
« Last Edit: June 28, 2022, 04:56:23 PM by Stephen Tannhauser »
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bromides

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1881 on: June 28, 2022, 06:30:24 PM »
I thought one of their core beliefs was that everything is political.  That's how they justify all the BS on the RPG side of the forums.  How many game threads have been derailed by someone all of a sudden bringing up irrelevant political aspect X?

"OHhhhh. I didn't want to say anything about Sebastien, the designer of that game... BUUUUUT there was this one incident 10 years ago where he said something about cats with melons on their head.

"Aaaand we all know that melons are coded alt-right language for Nazis, so Sebastien is an actual Nazi.

"AAaand that's why I don't think you should be talking about that in Open.

"BBBUTTTT, that's just my opinion.

"Don't just take my word that Sebastien is a Nazi. Here's a link to a 500-tweet thread about how Sebastien might be a Nazi, though."

(/sarcasm)

Ghostmaker

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1882 on: June 29, 2022, 07:39:14 AM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
Corollary: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here as well.

KindaMeh

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1883 on: June 29, 2022, 10:01:40 AM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
Corollary: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here as well.

Thanks to your having mentioned it, I now know what that is. And yeah, I guess that fits this situation in that folks with dedication to goals pushing to resolve this one would go against those with a dedication to the establishment's interests to keep it running. So for now at least, without the public being willing to make such behavior too costly to the establishment's interests to ignore, the "protectors" of even the political branch of the establishment who mostly run it keep the idealists in line, for the "greater good" of their party and its mobilization or more broadly to give the establishment something to do and "work" on.

Tying Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy to corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net, maybe part of why we see no action politically is because ironically to some extent voters care? Not enough for it to be costly to the establishment to ignore lasting and significant change on, but enough to make minor attempts and major promises on corporate interests and big tech more of a draw in the polls. Hence leading to a similar situation? IDK, just spitballing here. It's possible I shouldn't be trying to apply the law outside a raw and more literal bureaucratic context. Though I feel like given that bureaucrats are to some degree answerable in government to their political overlords, for such an iron law to exist even circumstantially there would have to be a tacit approval or parallel movement on their part. Regardless, this theorized principle or tendency did get me thinking.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 10:21:15 AM by KindaMeh »

Pat
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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1884 on: June 29, 2022, 10:48:53 AM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
Corollary: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here as well.

Thanks to your having mentioned it, I now know what that is. And yeah, I guess that fits this situation in that folks with dedication to goals pushing to resolve this one would go against those with a dedication to the establishment's interests to keep it running. So for now at least, without the public being willing to make such behavior too costly to the establishment's interests to ignore, the "protectors" of even the political branch of the establishment who mostly run it keep the idealists in line, for the "greater good" of their party and its mobilization or more broadly to give the establishment something to do and "work" on.

Tying Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy to corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net, maybe part of why we see no action politically is because ironically to some extent voters care? Not enough for it to be costly to the establishment to ignore lasting and significant change on, but enough to make minor attempts and major promises on corporate interests and big tech more of a draw in the polls. Hence leading to a similar situation? IDK, just spitballing here. It's possible I shouldn't be trying to apply the law outside a raw and more literal bureaucratic context. Regardless, this theorized principle or tendency did get me thinking.
That's the entire premise of public economics. There's a tendency for people to judge social and economic decisions or movements by their stated intentions, rather than looking at the end results, or the incentives that encourage people to act in certain ways based on their self interest. That leads people to assume that government employees are selfless "public servants" with no motivations or goals other than to help, or to claim that if you don't immediately spend more money and sacrifice basic rights in support of social program X to help people Y, then you're evil and actively trying to hurt Y. Conversely, this willful blindness and self-delusion is never extended to companies, who are nearly invariably assumed to have evil motivations, even though the entire premise of the free market is voluntary exchanges based on mutual benefit.

There's a reason why bureaucracies always grow and increase in power, why government power always grows and centralizes, why cronyism and corruption happens, and why even the best government programs seem so poorly aligned with the people they're supposed to help. It's called human nature. People in those positions seek to further their own goals, and even if they start with the best intentions, it's easy to rationalize away small compromises that provide personal benefit. Since they're likely to socialize with people in similar circumstances, they'll reinforce each other's decisions. They're naturally inclined to believe they're useful and having an impact, and will blame failures on external factors, like lack of resources, not enough power, interference, or scapegoats outside their normal circles (like companies). They'll do favors for their friends and family, and they'll seek to increase their own power and perpetuate the organization and their part in it. Unlike businesses, who constantly have to adjust their decisions based on the harsh demands of the balance sheet, there is no clear metric by which public organizations are measured, so there is no inherent means of correction when all these incentives drive them off course.

Incidentally, that's also why stateholder capitalism and the ESG movement are so perfidious -- they're removing the one clear corrective that forces businesses to be efficient and serve their customers, and replacing it with the vague and amorphous goals of public policy, which are so easily and almost automatically warped to serve the invested elite instead of the intended beneficiaries.

KindaMeh

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1885 on: June 29, 2022, 11:06:56 AM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
Corollary: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here as well.

Thanks to your having mentioned it, I now know what that is. And yeah, I guess that fits this situation in that folks with dedication to goals pushing to resolve this one would go against those with a dedication to the establishment's interests to keep it running. So for now at least, without the public being willing to make such behavior too costly to the establishment's interests to ignore, the "protectors" of even the political branch of the establishment who mostly run it keep the idealists in line, for the "greater good" of their party and its mobilization or more broadly to give the establishment something to do and "work" on.

Tying Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy to corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net, maybe part of why we see no action politically is because ironically to some extent voters care? Not enough for it to be costly to the establishment to ignore lasting and significant change on, but enough to make minor attempts and major promises on corporate interests and big tech more of a draw in the polls. Hence leading to a similar situation? IDK, just spitballing here. It's possible I shouldn't be trying to apply the law outside a raw and more literal bureaucratic context. Regardless, this theorized principle or tendency did get me thinking.
That's the entire premise of public economics. There's a tendency for people to judge social and economic decisions or movements by their stated intentions, rather than looking at the end results, or the incentives that encourage people to act in certain ways based on their self interest. That leads people to assume that government employees are selfless "public servants" with no motivations or goals other than to help, or to claim that if you don't immediately spend more money and sacrifice basic rights in support of social program X to help people Y, then you're evil and actively trying to hurt Y. Conversely, this willful blindness and self-delusion is never extended to companies, who are nearly invariably assumed to have evil motivations, even though the entire premise of the free market is voluntary exchanges based on mutual benefit.

There's a reason why bureaucracies always grow and increase in power, why government power always grows and centralizes, why cronyism and corruption happens, and why even the best government programs seem so poorly aligned with the people they're supposed to help. It's called human nature. People in those positions seek to further their own goals, and even if they start with the best intentions, it's easy to rationalize away small compromises that provide personal benefit. Since they're likely to socialize with people in similar circumstances, they'll reinforce each other's decisions. They're naturally inclined to believe they're useful and having an impact, and will blame failures on external factors, like lack of resources, not enough power, interference, or scapegoats outside their normal circles (like companies). They'll do favors for their friends and family, and they'll seek to increase their own power and perpetuate the organization and their part in it. Unlike businesses, who constantly have to adjust their decisions based on the harsh demands of the balance sheet, there is no clear metric by which public organizations are measured, so there is no inherent means of correction when all these incentives drive them off course.

Incidentally, that's also why stateholder capitalism and the ESG movement are so perfidious -- they're removing the one clear corrective that forces businesses to be efficient and serve their customers, and replacing it with the vague and amorphous goals of public policy, which are so easily and almost automatically warped to serve the invested elite instead of the intended beneficiaries.

This sounds intuitively true but also terrifying. A lot of of this felt pretty eye opening and caused me to think about things in a different manner, even if some of it I also already agreed with. Maybe I should look more into public economics and add that to my list of basic things to dedicate some time to becoming informed about.

All that being said, how can a bureaucrat or bureaucracy, or at least the people structuring them, or the people electing the people that do that, avoid some of these pitfalls? Or is it just inevitable really that they will be pushed in that direction? Basically, if one wants to fix problems like “ corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net” (quoting because lazy and afraid I’ll mess up what I think was a decent phrasing) for instance, either from within the system, as the system, as the people who make the system, or as a voter, how can it practically be done? And at what level do we think movement towards this change is best or most viably applied? (I’d assume regardless we want the citizens on board, else tyranny and oligarchy, but still asking.)

KindaMeh

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1886 on: June 29, 2022, 11:15:43 AM »
The Democrats have had fifty years to shore up RvW, but they couldn't be arsed because it was a good political grift.

This is unfortunately an inherent weakness of any kind of advocacy movement or organization, political or not. To paraphrase Upton Sinclair, it is difficult to get people to commit to permanently resolving an issue when their paycheque depends on it not yet being resolved. (Which is one reason court-mandated resolutions have become so popular: unelected judges become the only people willing to make decisions that will incur the wrath of large portions of an electorate because the backlash won't cost them their office.)
Corollary: Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies here as well.

Thanks to your having mentioned it, I now know what that is. And yeah, I guess that fits this situation in that folks with dedication to goals pushing to resolve this one would go against those with a dedication to the establishment's interests to keep it running. So for now at least, without the public being willing to make such behavior too costly to the establishment's interests to ignore, the "protectors" of even the political branch of the establishment who mostly run it keep the idealists in line, for the "greater good" of their party and its mobilization or more broadly to give the establishment something to do and "work" on.

Tying Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy to corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net, maybe part of why we see no action politically is because ironically to some extent voters care? Not enough for it to be costly to the establishment to ignore lasting and significant change on, but enough to make minor attempts and major promises on corporate interests and big tech more of a draw in the polls. Hence leading to a similar situation? IDK, just spitballing here. It's possible I shouldn't be trying to apply the law outside a raw and more literal bureaucratic context. Regardless, this theorized principle or tendency did get me thinking.
That's the entire premise of public economics. There's a tendency for people to judge social and economic decisions or movements by their stated intentions, rather than looking at the end results, or the incentives that encourage people to act in certain ways based on their self interest. That leads people to assume that government employees are selfless "public servants" with no motivations or goals other than to help, or to claim that if you don't immediately spend more money and sacrifice basic rights in support of social program X to help people Y, then you're evil and actively trying to hurt Y. Conversely, this willful blindness and self-delusion is never extended to companies, who are nearly invariably assumed to have evil motivations, even though the entire premise of the free market is voluntary exchanges based on mutual benefit.

There's a reason why bureaucracies always grow and increase in power, why government power always grows and centralizes, why cronyism and corruption happens, and why even the best government programs seem so poorly aligned with the people they're supposed to help. It's called human nature. People in those positions seek to further their own goals, and even if they start with the best intentions, it's easy to rationalize away small compromises that provide personal benefit. Since they're likely to socialize with people in similar circumstances, they'll reinforce each other's decisions. They're naturally inclined to believe they're useful and having an impact, and will blame failures on external factors, like lack of resources, not enough power, interference, or scapegoats outside their normal circles (like companies). They'll do favors for their friends and family, and they'll seek to increase their own power and perpetuate the organization and their part in it. Unlike businesses, who constantly have to adjust their decisions based on the harsh demands of the balance sheet, there is no clear metric by which public organizations are measured, so there is no inherent means of correction when all these incentives drive them off course.

Incidentally, that's also why stateholder capitalism and the ESG movement are so perfidious -- they're removing the one clear corrective that forces businesses to be efficient and serve their customers, and replacing it with the vague and amorphous goals of public policy, which are so easily and almost automatically warped to serve the invested elite instead of the intended beneficiaries.

This sounds intuitively true but also terrifying. A lot of of this felt pretty eye opening and caused me to think about things in a different manner, even if some of it I also already agreed with. Maybe I should look more into public economics and add that to my list of basic things to dedicate some time to becoming informed about.

All that being said, how can a bureaucrat or bureaucracy, or at least the people structuring them, or the people electing the people that do that, avoid some of these pitfalls? Or is it just inevitable really that they will be pushed in that direction? Basically, if one wants to fix problems like “ corporate censorship and refusal of goods and services on a political basis, perhaps exemplified at times by sites like RPG.net” (quoting because lazy and afraid I’ll mess up what I think was a decent phrasing) for instance, either from within the system, as the system, as the people who make the system, or as a voter, how can it practically be done? And at what level do we think movement towards this change is best or most viably applied? (I’d assume regardless we want the citizens on board, else tyranny and oligarchy, but still asking.)

Actually, looking back, this might be too broad a question/series of questions and could potentially disrupt this thread. Was trying to figure out what could be done about the systemic realities that give rise to problems like those I feel emphasized by RPG.net. But maybe reform is a bit too big and broad a subject to tackle within this particular thread without derailment. May try starting a thread if I can figure out how to do that, but probably should not hog space here.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2022, 11:33:40 AM by KindaMeh »

Battlemaster
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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1887 on: July 04, 2022, 09:33:56 PM »
It looks like they had a spate of bans on July 4. Is that how they celebrate a day dedicated to liberty?

Shitpost from jeffy I will not see in 4..3.. 2..

Fuck the fascist right and the fascist left.

Ghostmaker

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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1888 on: July 05, 2022, 08:26:55 AM »
It looks like they had a spate of bans on July 4. Is that how they celebrate a day dedicated to liberty?

Shitpost from jeffy I will not see in 4..3.. 2..
Yes. Because they should have the liberty to stamp out wrongthink.

(that was sarcasm)

The best one IMO was Withnail&I catching a one day for pointing out the absurdity of demanding people account for whatever interpretations a listener might put upon their words. Probably because that's literally TBP policy (the onus is on the poster).

Battlemaster
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Re: RPGnet's decay (TBP madness)
« Reply #1889 on: July 05, 2022, 09:01:45 AM »
Sarcasm? Really?

OK, yeah, in all fairness when dealing with that bunch it may be necessary to point that out.
Fuck the fascist right and the fascist left.