From: Brett Paatsch (paatschb@optusnet.com.au)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 21:54:19 MDT
There are political aspects to stem cells, GM foods, what liberties citizens in society should have and what necessarily for the functioning of the society they should not.
Even the Gulf war touched (or could have, if the heat to light ratio was constrained a little more) on matters of law and the development, desirability or otherwise of international law which perhaps relates to international trade and the level of confidence in the global economy.
Having a separate list for politics (rather than policing a basic set of rules) seems to be dangerously counterproductive to me. And there is still the need to exercise judgement either at the poster level and/or the moderator level as to what is or is not a political post.
Even board meetings have chairs to preserve the quality of the process. Unless the list is restricted in terms of who can join or the rules (whatever they are are enforced) then it is inevitable that there will be periodic drops in the quality of discussion.
I'd propose a periodic reminder post (as per my previous suggestions - what is to be lost by trying it- of the list rules and a nominated moderator (a role that could be rotated form time to time). The moderator should perhaps post with a separate userid or at least state when they are acting as moderator so that they can still participate in the discussions in their own right.
I think it may be easier to take the oxygen out of water than politics out of the ExI list.
Regards,
Brett Paatsch
----- Original Message -----
From: Natasha Vita-More
To: extropians@extropy.org
Cc: max More ; greg Burch ; robert J. Bradbury
Sent: Tuesday, June 17, 2003 9:09 AM
Subject: ExtroPolitics List Suggestion
Friends,
I have had several suggestions about our prosperous and challenging list. I'm taking care of them.
One suggestion was to start a new list for political postings. Let me know if you want this list, and/or if you think a new political list would help decelerate the traffic that is bottlenecking our conversation.
Natasha
Natasha Vita-More
http://www.natasha.cc
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President, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
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