Yes, Virginia, There Really Are Nazis, Cautionary Tales Ripped From History Options

It may take me two or three tries, but I would like to articulate the lessons that I draw from the history of Nazism and why these lessons really do keep coming to mind when I view the spectacle of Wikipedism.

I see it like this —

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

So far, so good, a thing like that doesn't have to be a bad thing, but I think you all know how a thing like that often turns out.

So let's all watch out for that …

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

It may take me two or three tries, but I would like to articulate the lessons that I draw from the history of Nazism and why these lessons really do keep coming to mind when I view the spectacle of Wikipedism.

I see it like this —

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

Nah, that's way too big in scope for the pettiness of WP.

WP's ills are more the garden variety Stanford prison guard experiment, or Milgram's.

Plus, thanks to MackWeiss, we all know now that Martin Luther is responsible for Nazism, and T.S. Eliot poems are responsible for neonazism.

This post has been edited by Piperdown:

Plot Outline - "Fear and Loathing in Lost Vagueness"

Some rough Knuckle-Dragging Beasts are slouching their way toward Bedlam when they encounter a North Amurcan Pie Man with Seven Lives.

The North Amurcan Pie Man is really The Big Bamboozler in disguise.

He tries to fool the Knuckle-Draggers.

(IMG:http://ultra.musenet.org:8020/media/Schadenfreude_files/zoom_39451.jpg)
Some Rough Knuckle-Dragging Beast
Slouching Toward Bedlam

"Are we there, Yeats?" asks one of the Knuckle Draggers.

There ensues a zany dialogue with the North Amurcan Pie Man (and a coupla other passers-by on the Road to Unmascus), culminating in a musical number, Slouching to the Darker Side.

It may take me two or three tries, but I would like to articulate the lessons that I draw from the history of Nazism and why these lessons really do keep coming to mind when I view the spectacle of Wikipedism.

I see it like this —

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

Nah, that's way too big in scope for the pettiness of WP.

WP's ills are more the garden variety Stanford prison guard experiment, or Milgram's.

Plus, thanks to MackWeiss, we all know now that Martin Luther is responsible for Nazism, and T.S. Eliot poems are responsible for neonazism.

FYSMI, because two of the taglines that tug at the edges of my conch's nest in this connexion are Hannah Arendt's line about the «banality of evil» and Max Weber's line about the «routinization of charisma».

Not to mention the Biblical line about what mighty dope springs from the tiny bastard seed …

You may be forgetting that the experiments you mention were post facto scientific attempts to probe the very phenomenon of the authoritarian asshole mind that had caught the world with its pants down, ass it were, just a few years before.

Yes, I grok that line about the Dimside Of The Enlightenment («DOTE»), and I buy the bit of truth that lies in it, though not so ho-hog as I were wont to do in my götterdïmmer götterdümmer daze.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

WP's ills are more the garden variety Stanford prison guard experiment, or Milgram's.

Frankly, that's not illness, it is a phenomenon of sadism which any person is capable of, as the experiments both proved, when there are no limits or repercussions for said sadism.

WP's problem isn't the persons involved, per se. It is the problem of the lack of controls, limits or bipartisan oversight. That was the conclusion (in a nutshell) of those experiments. That all persons are capable of bad (even evil) things, if given total power.

Wikipedia is no more full of nutjobs than anywhere else (at least theoretically, though it can feel that it is). It is just that on Wikipedia, no one stops them from running amok.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

It may take me two or three tries, but I would like to articulate the lessons that I draw from the history of Nazism and why these lessons really do keep coming to mind when I view the spectacle of Wikipedism.

I see it like this —

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

So far, so good, a thing like that doesn't have to be a bad thing, but I think you all know how a thing like that often turns out.

So let's all watch out for that …

Jon Awbrey

To continue …

I said that a Pyamid Of Control (POC) — very roughly the same thing that is described in various spheres of discourse as an Authoritarian Bureaucratic Organization (ABO) or a Chain Of Command And Control (COCAC) — does not have to be a bad thing. But we all know that this particular Form Of Control (FOC) is capable of horrors and terrors when it does go bad, in large part because this species of FOC tends to run amok when some external push or internal shove nudges it a bit too far past its tipping point.

But we should not be misled into thinking that all dysfunctional FOCS are alike. Everyone will know that line from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina — "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" — and it is a canonical observation of systems theorists that functional systems tend to be functional in very similar ways, while dysfunctional systems are dysfunctional each in its own way.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

Tolstoy's Anna Karenina — "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" — and it is a canonical observation of systems theorists that functional systems tend to be functional in very similar ways, while dysfunctional systems are dysfunctional each in its own way.

Jon Awbrey

Probably true (your point that this was objectified by Tolstoy), but it is also true that most historical classics (examples come to mind such as Molière, Shakespeare, etc.) hold basic models and truths which were later distilled by the various social sciences as psychology, political science theory, etc. (both psy and poly sci have their own distillations and derivations of systems theory works).

My most impressing memories of Tolstoy (and Chechov) include a general malaise and depressive world-view, which I was led to believe was indicative of the fatalism of the Russian soul. My 2 cents.

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

Functional systems have a well-designed steering function that gracefully drives the error (deviation from goal) to zero with minimum effort and negligible backlash.

Fyodor Dostoevsky caricatured a classical dysfunctional system in his novels (e.g. The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment).

The WP:Rules and Sanctions comprise an ill-conceived, graceless, erratic, and inefficient steering function with disturbing levels of woeful backlash.

WP's ills are more the garden variety Stanford prison guard experiment, or Milgram's.

Frankly, that's not illness, it is a phenomenon of sadism which any person is capable of, as the experiments both proved, when there are no limits or repercussions for said sadism.

WP's problem isn't the persons involved, per se. It is the problem of the lack of controls, limits or bipartisan oversight. That was the conclusion (in a nutshell) of those experiments. That all persons are capable of bad (even evil) things, if given total power.

Wikipedia is no more full of nutjobs than anywhere else (at least theoretically, though it can feel that it is). It is just that on Wikipedia, no one stops them from running amok.

It was one of the explicit points of my opening post that we are talking about a particular relationship between human universals (the secret truth in people's ♥ that most of them deny most of the time) and human singularities (the individual with a unique grasp of this secret and a singular will to exploit it on behalf of a personal fantasy of power).

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

Functional systems have a well-designed steering function that gracefully drives the error (deviation from goal) to zero with minimum effort and negligible backlash.

Fyodor Dostoevsky caricatured a classical dysfunctional system in his novels (e.g. The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment).

The WP:Rules and Sanctions comprise an ill-conceived, graceless, erratic, and inefficient steering function with disturbing levels of woeful backlash.

I agree about the Steering, but not about What Steers —

The Biker with Born To Be Bad tattooed on her chest is not bad because of the tattoo.

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

What Steers

Emasculated Bulls?

It was one of the explicit points of my opening post that we are talking about a particular relationship between human universals (the secret truth in people's ♥ that most of them deny most of the time) and human singularities (the individual with a unique grasp of this secret and a singular will to exploit it on behalf of a personal fantasy of power).

Well, yeah, sure. Anyone who figures out something that will become popular can very well become powerful and/or rich by virtue by exploiting the discovery.

For example, you don't see Gates being such a turkey, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif) . This despite the (many legitimate) complaints against Gate's got for his competitive business and technological practices.

I don't know that Gates was such a complete jerk at the personal level, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Gates was probably a tough boss, and maybe not easy, but he never insulted, or put ill at ease, with personal directness, consumers of his discovery, in a way that invaded their personal and professional lives, like some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

More recently, Gates gives lots of money to things, rather than asking other people for money to be given to him, to finance a mandate that doesn't really serve the poor, but serves his own personal objectives, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

This post has been edited by Disillusioned Lackey:

It was one of the explicit points of my opening post that we are talking about a particular relationship between human universals (the secret truth in people's ♥ that most of them deny most of the time) and human singularities (the individual with a unique grasp of this secret and a singular will to exploit it on behalf of a personal fantasy of power).

Well, yeah, sure. Anyone who figures out something that will become popular can very well become powerful and/or rich by virtue by exploiting the discovery.

For example, you don't see Gates being such a turkey, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif) This despite the (many legitimate) complaints against Gate's got for his competitive business and technological practices.

I don't know that Gates was such a complete jerk at the personal level, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

Gates was probably a tough boss, and maybe not easy, but he never insulted, or put ill at ease, with personal directness, consumers of his discovery, in a way that invaded their personal and professional lives, like some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

More recently, Gates gives lots of money to things, rather than asking other people for money to be given to him, to finance a mandate that doesn't really serve the poor, but serves his own personal objectives, as some other persons. (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif)

I think that pic of Madame Durovary is having an adverse effect on your critical capacities — I know that I've developed a farcial tic from wincing each time it pops up on my screen.

You did get that we are talking about Hitler not Pet Rocks, Heaven's Gate not Bill Gates?

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

I think that pic of Madame Durovary is having an adverse effect ... I know that I've developed a farcial tic from wincing each time it pops up on my screen.

Somebody needs to make an animated GIF out of Madame Durovary. Basically, unhinge her jaw, exposing (Photoshopped) sharp fangs, then have her devour someone's head in four giant bites -- maybe Jehochman's!

You know, in the style similar to the Monty Python's Flying Circus animations?

Now, to watch THAT would cause paralysis, without question.

I'd create this image, if only I knew how.

Greg

I laid out a trace of what amounts to my personal understanding of the ill-springs that fund a well-known if not exactly well-grokked species of social-political horror.

It would of course be rank hyperbole to compare the current state of Wikipedism with the penultimate state of full-blown Nazism.

Still there echoes of the same gears, as they engage at the start of each round, if anyone takes the trouble to listen.

Jon Awbrey

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

Wasn't that guy laughed at in the beginning?

There was this guy who knew a secret about human beings, a secret that almost all human beings keep secret even from themselves. I don't know how he learned this secret, it could have been something peculiar in his upbringing, and I don't even know how aware he was of knowing it, but he had the knack of it well enough to make use of it, and the use that he made of it was in building a pyramid of control over other human beings with himself at the apex.

Wasn't that guy laughed at in the beginning?

Yes, but then he pat down to slay …

Jonny (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/cool.gif)

I laid out a trace of what amounts to my personal understanding of the ill-springs that fund a well-known if not exactly well-grokked species of social-political horror.

It would of course be rank hyperbole to compare the current state of Wikipedism with the penultimate state of full-blown Nazism.

Still there echoes of the same gears, as they engage at the start of each round, if anyone takes the trouble to listen.

Jon Awbrey

When I mull over the case of Wikipedia — your mullage may vary — I find a large number of prognaztic symptoms that have me worried about the course of its condition. It being late here, let me just mention a few of the most worrisome:

• People behaving like robots. Wikipediots and especially Admins tend to conduct themselves more and more over time like mechanical automata or mindless martinets who follows orders in a discretionless manner without ever pausing to reflect on the justice of those orders. This is of course the approximate norm in armed forces and military hierarchies, but it's abnormal behavior for a civil society — hence the name "civilian" as distinguished from "soldier".
• People behaving like dumb robots. Not all robots are so dumb, so insensitive, and so non-adaptive that they cannot respond to feedback from the environment. But Wikipediots and especially Admins appear to be in the final stages of desperation when it comes to looking for ways to shut out inputs whose messages they cannot control in advance. But over-controlled information is no information at all.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:

There was a story in yesterday's science news about robotic cockroaches which variously mimic and deviate from standard cockroach rules of behavior.

Mindless adherence to otherwise discoverable rulesets is generally a disadvantage unless those rulesets happen to be mathematically optimal. I don't think it's a stretch to hypothesize that various and sundry WP:RuleSets are woefully sub-optimal with respect to the goal of producing a high-quality public encyclopedia.

One of the more mindless rules that permeates our culture is the rule that calls for singling out the most blameworthy scapegoat for whatever haphazard misadventure is currently above the fold.

It's a feel-good rule, but the schadenfreude glee doesn't last.

There was a story in yesterday's science news about robotic cockroaches which variously mimic and deviate from standard cockroach rules of behavior.

Mindless adherence to otherwise discoverable rulesets is generally a disadvantage unless those rulesets happen to be mathematically optimal. I don't think it's a stretch to hypothesize that various and sundry WP:RuleSets are woefully sub-optimal with respect to the goal of producing a high-quality public encyclopedia.

One of the more mindless rules that permeates our culture is the rule that calls for singling out the most blameworthy scapegoat for whatever haphazard misadventure is currently above the fold.

It's a feel-good rule, but the schadenfreude glee doesn't last.

Look, I agree with about 90% of the things you have been saying in this Forum, but you really gotta stop saying all those bad things about Rule Bases (RB's) based on the travesty that Wikipediots make of them.

If we regarded every concept as reflected in the Wikipediot mirror dimwittedly there would be no positive concepts left.

Can we get some NP:Consensus on that NP:Point before proceeding with the analysis, terminable or otherwise?

Jon Awbrey