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Forum Post: Substruction & the Multitude

Posted 12 years ago on Oct. 17, 2011, 6:57 p.m. EST by MichaelFerrer (63)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

If you sincerely want to be a part of building something, this forum is surely no longer a place to do it, and not likely to become one.

Try here:

http://www.themultitude.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=93&p=421#p421

8 Comments

8 Comments


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[-] 1 points by TechJunkie (3029) from Miami Beach, FL 12 years ago

...because the open forum for the movement where everybody gets a voice is not a place for the movement to build something, and not likely to become one. Res ipsa loquitur, yes?

[-] 1 points by MichaelFerrer (63) 12 years ago

I don't really think this forum is "for the movement." I think that it's an incidental attachment to the website that got way out of hand ane swamped with trolls, and I think that the organizers probably consider that they have better things to do than bother with better moderating it, changing the layout, etc. The OWS movement, from the perspective of this website, is necessarily on the street. And that's really where their efforts should be directed. In the meantime this forum is as 'open' as can be, but that leaves it with very little functionality for users and little utility for actual, serious supporters. An endless list of topics isn't a forum for helping people organize (in thought or in deed), it's grafitti. It's good that 'everybody' gets their 'say,' it's not necessarily a bad thing that this is here, but even given what it is, and what it's for, it seems to me entirely keeping to the spirit of things to start other forums, groups, etc. that are off-site, both online and IRL. Each will end up with its particular inflection. This is one of them.

[-] 1 points by TechJunkie (3029) from Miami Beach, FL 12 years ago

Oh okay sorry I thought that the movement was open to all voices. This is starting to sound a lot like the pigs from Animal Farm.

[-] 1 points by MichaelFerrer (63) 12 years ago

And how is it doing that, exactly? You're saying that there shouldn't be any other public forum for discussion of the ideas and activities related to this movement? You think the only 'legitimate' option (which is to say, you recognize this as being the only legitimate option) should be this forum, that anyone interested in this conversation should thus have to submit to just this format--which means wading through a sea of trolls and an endless, rambling list of topic headings...that's the only, what, "real" way of representing this movement, or of helping it go forward?

It's odd to me how the first tendency of so many on this board is just to hop onto a thread to call fascism at the slightest hint of definite organization. It seems to me that that simply wouldn't be the attitude of somebody here to really contribute to a discussion--it's just low-grade trolling parading as free-speech policing. Which, practically speaking, sounds like the best way to ensure any group with an agenda doesn't succeed, by pissing on any attempts to disengage the signal of its supporters and the people who take it seriously from the noise of the haters and trolls. There's no point to your sarcasm except knee-jerk, Internet-facilitated rudeness. And that's exactly the problem with this forum including "all voices": it's a movement, not a chatroom. If people want to sit around and trade insults and snark all day long, there are a million other places to do it. If they actually want to cooperate, hear one another out, take their own ideas seriously...for myself and for many others, it looks like those folks need other places to go. If you're not one of them, that's fine. But to cry censorship with the same breath you're using to balk at starting another forum, well...talk about Orwellian.

[-] 1 points by TechJunkie (3029) from Miami Beach, FL 12 years ago

I have a point believe it or not. The only way to unify is to exclude. Or to just continue to pretend that Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead at the same time. That won't accomplish anything.

[-] 1 points by MichaelFerrer (63) 12 years ago

Well, I agree with you. So why were we in disagreement, exactly? :-) Was the second post sarcastic (or, rather, differently sarcastic than I thought)?

[-] 1 points by TechJunkie (3029) from Miami Beach, FL 12 years ago

"Differently sarcastic", is a brilliant way to put it. I'm not a troll, I'm productive in my own way. The truth isn't always pretty.

[-] 1 points by hairlessOrphan (522) 12 years ago

It is open to all voices, even to ones who are not posting in good faith.

Let it stay. Meanwhile, let there be alternatives.