QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Tue 30th September 2008, 11:46am)
What I am uncomfortable with, is given that Dopey Mike has explicitly said that this slightly creepy phrasing (which quote doesn't actually work as the bible seems to be saying "stay ignorant - it's good for you in the long term.") the character Moulton deliberately does not seek to allay any concerns. It's a bit of a silly game for the character Moulton to be made to play. It is in character, goading people into persecuting the Moulton character.
Actually, the passage doesn't say to remain totally ignorant of the concept of Good and Evil. What the passage hints at (but doesn't come out and say in plain math) is that Good and Evil are two extremes of a continuous axis, and that dividing all acts into just those two labels does violence to the mathematical concept of gradations and degrees.
We can excuse the authors of those ancient texts for not suggesting the adoption of a continuously differentiable
Error Function, as Archimedes, Newton, and Leibniz hadn't quite gotten around to inventing the Calculus yet.
QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Tue 30th September 2008, 11:46am)
Barry's role-playing games became tiresome some time ago, and I am quite happy to assume it is my inferior intellect that means I just don't see the higher purpose, but it also concerns me that these games of ambiguity do not reflect well on WR. In my personal view, the Moulton character is walking a very fine line, and I'm not sure he has a good sense of balance.
The line I'm sauntering is the one mapped out in the gracefully divine
Error Function.
QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 30th September 2008, 11:56am)
Getting half of Boston blocked from editing Wikipedia for a couple of hours -- higher purpose. Perhaps Wikipediots will begin to understand that massive blocking is inherently in conflict with the encyclopedia "anyone can edit". They should do away with one or the other.
Oh, wait... it's not actually an encyclopedia. It's a revenge platform. Thus, Moulton's just playing according to the design. So, what's the problem?
The problem is the same one faced by Moses, Socrates, Buddha, Lao Tsu, Hillel, Jesus, Beckett, Galileo, Darwin, Thoreau, Gandhi, King, Mandela, Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Dalai Lama.
The problem is how to get more Wikimedians to think as insightfully as NewYorkBrad and Alison.
QUOTE(dogbiscuit @ Tue 30th September 2008, a few minutes ago)
I am aware that Moulton points out the inconsistencies and holes in how Wikipedia works. I am simply not a fan of taking to the low ground to do it. When I get to the point that I think, I don't like how he was treated, but I can understand why they did it and I would do the same" then the experiment fails, in my book. It's all a bit "Please don't poke the bear, it will attack." Let's see what happens if I poke it. Oh, it attacked. So what? I mean, its a bit like big game hunting in London Zoo.
Merely pointing out the dysfunctionality is rather futile, don't you think? Why do you suppose Socrates and Jesus elected to act out their dramas rather than just point out the problems in a brief essay posted on their dusty blogs?
Galileo
did try writing a Socratic dialogue. The Pope threw him in the hoosegow anyway.
If I were as gifted as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, or JK Rowling, I'd just write yet another version of the same novel.
Alas I suck at storycraft and dramaturgy.
Which is why I appreciate how terribly important it is.
This post has been edited by Moulton: