h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One could argue that this belongs at Ask H2G2, but I'm posting it here because its really directed to those who've communicated with Justin the Preacher or at least read the backlog on his threads.

Imagine that JTP's account had been suspended (as it probably would have been had all his postings been Yikesed and the House Rules applied to them) and, as per the Terms and Conditions, researchers were given a chance to say whether or not he should be banned. What would you say? Would you support him or say he should be banned? Responces below, please.

And, is this a waste of time? Probably, but I'm bored.

I say no. He had his views, and I'm sure I learnt a lot from him, even if no one else did. He was my first introduction to Hootoo, and I held my first debates with him, and it's certainly taught me a lot about ettiquete, if nothing deeper. Also, the rules for flaming and insulting and rude behaviour may have been broken, so perhaps he should have been banned for strictly technical reasons, but whenever he insulted anybody, a whole phalanx of anti-Justin protesters would step in and fight back. Oh, another thing: he bought together the finest minds in Hootoo, to combat him.
And let's not forget the humour value, too. He was like a novelty character in a computer game (Hoo's "Steve - Justin's an AI" fiasco was h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s.).

The only problem I had with Justin was the way he was "right all the time" and I was always wrong.

I am a christian and in my view if I ask god for forgiveness, he will give it. Ask and you shall receive.

Unfortunately Justin always made me feel as if I needed to ask his permission for forgiveness instead of god. Wrong!

But at the end of the day, he had his views and it was up to us if we wanted to talk with him about them.

I suspect that I wouldn't have bothered to argue either for or against Justin, but I would have been sorry to see him banned. However, if I were to take sides, I would have to side with Voltaire.

"Lèse majesté" or causing offence by expressing unpopular views is not illegal in the UK. We do have freedom of speech of sorts, even if it is not as powerful a legal concept as in the USA.

So while I might be unhappy about his choice of words at times, I can't see that banning Justin would serve any useful purpose other than to encourage greater censorship. This would be bad.

It is far better to allow Justin to present his case and for us to refute it, than to deny anyone the right to express theirself, just as it is far better to allow discussions regarding abortion, race, sex, politics, economics and war.

Every community needs a mad-ass preacher standing on a street (forum?) corner ranting and raving. It was curious the way he could break the house rules over and over again, even under pre-moderation (usually through his journal entries) and NOT be banned, or suspended.

Ste

Maybe they were scared because he was a police officer (or something like that, wasn't he?), or maybe he was a relation or friend, like (i suspect) in the recent tango (or whoever it was) case, which I came across by stalking Hoovooloo. Maybe it was because he was (supposedly) a man of the cloth. Maybe he was just damn' funny.

My view on censorship is that it is just about always bad--therefor I could not reasonably say I think Justin should be censored.

However, my real reason to say he shouldn't be banned is that I think he was actually a rather valuable person. Yes, he was highly offensive to almost everyone, but he still had value.

As Ford pointed out, he collected many of the best minds on H2G2 to his page. This is how I met Hoovooloo, Ford, Math the Apostate, and Ste. (And I was thinking of this before Ford said it. I therefor level the charge of precognicent plagerism against him--he stole my ideas before I even got to say them. {And I'm not making that charge up, Isaac Asimov accused Larry Niven of it for writing the short story Neutron Star.]).

Other ponts will be made later.

Society has inbuilt censorship in the form of other people's morals.
Plagerism? Or plagiarism?
Ford.... Fnord.... Ford... Fnord.... one of which is my real (or rather, assumed) name, and one of which isn't. Do you mean that any of the other countless Fords on this site are the brilliant minds, or the only (hopefully) Fnord on here?
That, I hope, was only two examples of my "best minds on H2G2" pedantry.

His opinion was worth at least as much as mine, if not more, for the humour.

To avoid insulting my friends, meta-friends and contacts, I'll just say that in the "Best minds of H2G2" list, you missed many a person.

I apologize. I can't spell without a spell checker. I'm sorry, I'll try to get you're name right. As for morals, well, I siad I didn't like censorship. I agree about the list.

"Imagine that JTP's account had been suspended "

Let's be clear this is a thought experiment, because to my knowledge at least, Justin has NOT been banned, or even temporarily suspended. He's just b****red off.

In answer to the question - it depends what he'd done. I'd generally not like to see people censored. This community works better, most of the time, dealing with unacceptable behaviour by facing up to it rather than making it disappear and pretending it was never there.

But there are limits. So my answer would be - it depends, but I'd probably prefer to have him on here than not, if only for entertainment value.

H.

See? Hoo agrees with me. He was a funny ol' man, was that preacher. Preacher keen, jelly bean. Anyway, it remains to be seen if everyone else on this thread has died of a fractured coccix and periostalitosis.

See? Hoo agrees with me. He was a funny ol' man, was that preacher. Preacher keen, jelly bean. Anyway, it remains to be seen if everyone else on this thread has died of a fractured coccix and periostalitosis.

"Let's be clear this is a thought experiment, because to my knowledge at least, Justin has NOT been banned, or even temporarily suspended. He's just b****red off."

I am aware of that. I was planning on posting this discussion even beforre he vanished, but I didn't get around to it.

"I'd probably prefer to have him on here than not, if only for entertainment value."

Actually, so would I. But he is also educational; he shows everyone just how irrational religious fundamentalists can be.