censorship, greed, ego, empire building ... hate in the name of love

I deleted a post this afternoon that was what I think is a great example of "hate in the name of love." In a way, it is a shame to delete it because it is such a perfect example of this.

A few quotes:

I really do not appreciate censorship, and enjoy lively discourse about important issues that could possibly really create a rift in the community that I know and love. This is a real issue to me.

And I deleted (censored) this post.

I think there are lots of forums that are fully open, and there are other forums that are moderated with a much lighter hand than this one. All forums take a lot of work and expense. And this forum, the one that has the MOST censorship, is mysteriously the biggest.

I suppose that if one did not like censorship, then one would not use the site that does the censoring. Further, be the change you want to see: create a forum that is unmoderated. I think it will quickly fill with spam and hate.

and the greed which is even used concerning small scale and developing nation permacultural sites.

Here is my podcast on people throwing around the word "greed" like this:

http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/455-podcast-085-greed/

The funny thing is that she is bashing somebody else's PDC (one which I think is good) and then she advertises her own PDC.

Frankly the whole post reads as "it's not fair that other people have more than I have." And the other people have done so much work that their names are extremely well known in the permaculture world, whereas this is the first I have ever heard of her or her organization. She seems to be suggesting that the other people need to stop doing what they are doing and, instead, do what she tells them to do.

She then seems to suggest that for all of the money that the other people have earned, she feels they need to be held accountable to her on what those funds are spent on.

What I feel that I am witnessing is empire building, a kingdom is being created which is ruled by one king. This is NOT the community that I joined, and it is not modeling nature.

I think that every farmer is trying to build something. I know that I literally refer to my web pages as my empire - and I have always made it clear it is ruled by just me. She says it like it's a bad thing.

Permaculture is made of thousands of people each trying to build things. Just because one person won't be your servant doesn't mean you should try to shame them into servitude.

Right now this movement needs unity and connections so that we can rise up and show a united front to the world to compete with the modern global paradigm.

So step one is bash the crap out of other permaculture people?

REMEMBER... be the change?

She should follow her own advice.

I am just making a request that we drop the ego, start sharing, use leverage points, network, work together to do BIGGER things, show the face of true revolutionary change.... not a monopolistic, heirarchical, overly money driven, greenwashed, watered down, hyped up, replica of the current system!!

Total posts on permies: 3.

Post 1: advertise her PDC

Post 2: advertise her PDC

Post 3: bash the crap out of me and somebody else's PDC

So much for sharing instead of being money driven.

Always fun to see somebody post bashing somebody else's ego. After all, you need to have a pretty healthy ego to post to a public forum.

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Here is what I think is a good, healthy path. Rather than bashing other people in the name of loving people, how about find a permaculture question and answer it. Maybe find a hundred. People are trying to learn permaculture. If you really want to help, just help guide people to your knowledge set.

Actually help people rather than commanding/shaming others to help people your way.

I think, if one does a good job purveying permaculture ideas in the public space, and one does it long enough and hard enough, money will find you.

And if you don't, it won't. It's like Jack Spirco's "overnight" success. He gave it away and gave it away and gave it away, and invested a huge amount of time to prove to people he cared, and he knew what the hell he was talking about.

Once he proved those two things, he figured out a clever revenue model to capitalize on that. Good on him.

Good on you. I"m not sure his revenue model exactly fits your empire aspirations, but somehow, a path will become apparent. Once you have "infected" enough brains (yes, I'm a pod person...) it will reach a critical mass, and the community and you will find a mutually satisfying revenue model. The sucky part is, until a critical number has learned the vocabulary and seen the big picture potential for permaculture, it will appear as though nobody wants to pony up the bucks for your content. But just keep plowing ahead putting content out, and eventually, it will happen. The model will appear. I promise...

I myself have determined that I am ready to throw 50-75 bucks in your hat once you give me a good way to do that.


I hope you get filthy rich promoting these crazy ideas.


I am surprised at how envy can really eat some people up. It's not just, "Wow, I really want what you have." It metastasizes into, "Well, if I can't have what you have, right now, and real easy, then I don't want you to have it either, and you're somehow morally deficient for being successful."


Yeah, not so much. Haters gonna hate.

Hey, get filthy stinking rich and make them all die of their envy.


Carry on.

troy

Its your field Paul, you decide what grows in it .
Weeds can go and live somewhere else if they want .

David

Paul,

You've censored/deleted my posts before and while I was a little disappointed/annoyed at the time, I did understand the need to keep this forum what you created it to be. If you let everyone say anything it could lose focus or drift toward less than it could be. Don't feel bad about maintaining your vision!

The problem with rules is, if there are more than a couple lines of them people see "Blah blah blah" and skip it. Better people may skip it "for now" to read later then forget, and even the very best forum participants can forget which rules go to which forums they've joined and accidentally break them from time to time.

This is a good forum. Don't feel guilty for keeping it that way.

Paul, nicely done. I know you are super busy right now so thanks for taking the time to post this. It helps people get to know you better.

I guess the thing I am trying to convey here is the problem of "hate in the name of love": people who say we need to love everybody and share openly and freely with all people in all ways, but their actions say "do as I command you or I will bring a bucket of ugly to your parade" and they only sell their knowledge, they don't share.

When I read the post in question, my impression was that this person was trying to shame me into how to manage my affairs. Or just directly tell me what to do. And doing so from a position of ignorance. It would seem that if I were to choose to respond, I would need to be held accountable to this person. Guilty until I can prove my innocence.

Of course I've seen this hundreds of times before, so I have no problem deleting it. By mentioning it here I hope to make others aware of this sort of thing. And that I don't want to publish this ick. So if people see it, they can click on "report to moderator". And if anybody here experiences it in real life, you might recognize it for what it is and then make good choices.

I don't think people really get the fact that Permies.com is an extension of Paul's living room. It's got a lot of people saying more or less what they want, but in the end it's his frickin' house.

People just have to get over that and move on with things.
William

I have three quotes for you !

1) ' You can always tell a farmer !', 'You just can't tell him much'

2) ' A farmer is a man (or woman!) Out Standing in their Field !)

3) 'Farmers Feed you three times a day !!!


And a tip of the hat to Renate Haeckler, a classy act from a classy lady I don't always agree with !

During the '50s and 60s, when Europe was re-building itself from the rubble of WW11,they often expressed dismay over the fact that for good or bad, Europe was
under the American Nuclear Umbrella. The best response to that was to ask that European ''which one of his neighboring Nation States they would rather give the
job of 'Defending the Democratic way of life to' ?"

In exactly the same vein, I want to say, Thank you Paul ! You are stuck with a job No one wants and Emphatically doesn't want his neighbors to have !

For the Future ! Be safe, keep warm ! PYRO-Logical Big AL ! - As always, your comments and questions are solicited and are Welcome ! A. L.

For the GOOD of the Future ! Be safe, keep warm ! PYROLogically Big AL ! - As always, your comments and questions are solicited and Welcome !

I used to help run a forum for the old Rothbury festival. It's still up and running, but the drama and incessant PMs about one person flaming or wherever to another. It is much easier to delete and maybe even ban one nasty individual or group than let the forum become nonconstructive.

Funnily enough the people we banned went off and made their own forum for the same fest, always full of nasty comments and substantially less members, posts, and views. Weird eh?

The fact that you/Paul take(s) the time to read through most, if not all, of the posts speaks volumes to your/his dedication on furthering permaculture and it's lifestyle. Sitting at a computer desk is probably not what you/he want's to do with hours of your/his time, but you/he puts in the work and tries to make this site a place for everyone to use and enjoy. I remember you/him posting the you/he runs in the red to this day.

To paraphrase Kat Williams, "Haters gotta hate. If you have 15 people hating on you right now, try to figure out how to have 25 by the end of the summer."

As someone who is an odd mix of interests and views, tends to find common ground in opposing "camps" on a host of subjects AND someone who tends to get into flame wars I can tell you with confidence, well moderated boards such as this one attract and keep the best posters and have the best discussions, moderation makes or breaks a site.

Having been moderated and corrected here I can assure you guys you are doing the right things for the right reasons to get the right results.

I got this in my email today:

You’re right about free speech, Paul. By being a stupid prick, you don’t stop any of us from exercising our free speech. What you stop is intelligent people from using the site and people as dumb as yourself from learning.

The comedy is that this person has a web site where "peace" and "love" are in the domain name.  

It would seem that my censorship is working perfectly.  Well, according to my standards.   I suppose that on his web site, he is censoring something different.  


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In reading this this morning I remembered working for a newspaper for a few months.  My job was to put their newspaper online, and I got it done in just a few months.  There were about 500 people that worked for the newspaper.  I would guess that it cost about $200,000 to put the paper out each day.  The publisher has to juggle between advertisers, employees, building costs, subscribers and people complaining about censorship to pull something off that works.  Of course, if he censored nothing, all of the advertisers would stop advertising and simply use the front page for stories about their products.  In fact, everybody would use the front page for their own editorials and graffiti.  And then nobody would want to subscribe to that.

I tried to visit this guy's web site.  Lame.  Maybe people were simply not interested in reading what he had to say.  My guess is that he never built an audience.

It's hard to get a web site off the ground.  It would be a million times easier to just be allowed to post on somebody else's already established web site.  

But let me turn this question to you, dear reader:  if you spend 10,000 hours building a web site, how do you feel about publishing the quote above?  (For those of you that are a bit shy, if you agree with this post, you can give a thumbs up (you can give two thumbs up if you have PIE!))

Watch out Paul I see a virtual milkshake coming your way.  Hahaha.  

The guy's an incel.

People forget they have freedom of choice.  

Often, it may look like censorship... but there is another way to think about it.

Our local museum has maybe 2 or 3 half floors of display.  But their basement goes really deep and is overflowing with things, not on display.  The Curator said that they show at maximum 10% of their collection at any one time and that was his job, to choose what to put on display and what to keep hidden away.

He curates the content.  

Likewise, when I went on a tour of some of the local art galleries, I was shocked by how much stuff they didn't show.  They show maybe 1% of their collection at any one time.  Maybe less if they have borrowed work in.    If they showed more than that, what was on display loses the attention of the visitors.  They get confused and have a poor experience.  

A forum is like that.  The people who build the forum choose what aspect of life, the universe, and everything they wish to publish.  Curation looks like censorship from some angles... In the end, it's usually someone not bothering or caring enough about the community they are participating to learn what the goal of the community is.

And for the rest of you lovely people (aka, the majority), if you ever want to look it up again, we have a a lovely list of useful pages here.

So often it seems that a person confuses their freedom of speech:
The right to express any opinion in public without censorship or restraint by the government, protected in the United States as a right under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

and the freedom of the press:
The right of citizens or the media to print, or otherwise disseminate, speech, ideas and opinions without fear or harm of prosecution.

As a forum member of this site, I can speak without fear of the government censoring my words. But web sites and forums are not public spaces, they are private property owned/controlled by either companies or private individuals. I don't own this web site, and so just like sending a letter to a newspaper, I don't have the right to force the press (either the owner of a newspaper or a web site) to post my speech. If I want to publish my speech, I need to set up my own form of publication, in this case start my own web site/forums.