IMO this isn’t really a question. Sure this guy can change what he wants about a site that is under his control, and, as made evident from his activity, completely ignore anyone with different ideas, but that’s his pit to fall in.
The pure hypocrisy demonstrated by a person who claims to support individual freedom and evolution is always a joy to undermine, because these kinds of dudes are all the same. They’ll say or suck on anything if it throws a penny their way! Watching them try to bury the shit they dug up could be even more entertaining.
This thread was unpinned for a reason, which is to shift focus away from it. But as long as it’s on topic, I don’t see any reason for this thread to be closed or even slow down?
The only things I intend to do are watch for outright insults, partisan (political) point-scoring/promotion, off-topic derailments, other actually rulebreaking things.
I don’t intend to close the thread, that’s Timothy’s call as it’s his thread.
Yet, the political viewpoints do just the same. It divides people, taking away the main purpose of this forum. In a way, it also limiting the, so called, “free speach” and the “individual freedom” most of us are advocating. That’s also hypocrisy.
That really makes it fall back on the essential question, which is WHOSE individuality and freedom are being represented?
The name of this website gives off the impression that it attracts people seeking autonomy. ‘True freedom’ would be everyone talking about what they want with a passion, because if you don’t have a passion for the topic you could make or find one and people wouldn’t (and don’t) have to read stuff that’s about something they’re not interested in.
IMO when people are being themselves that is unity, because they are acting as individuals. Viewpoints are just feelings people have, and when everyone is expressing their feelings they’re all unified in that. The rules page bills this as a ‘social hang-out’, so it’s imaginable that people would talk about their feelings in respect to things that have an impact on them.
Letting people have choices in the content of their discussions isn’t really ‘limiting’, IME people that want to fight will find a reason to so there’s no real benefit in trying to prevent that from happening. I mean one of the rules is ‘no unwanted hexes’, so unless hearsay and confirmation bias rule this joint I imagine there is at least a way to detect when people are causing problems with magic.
Long story short is that people will either harbor or express their dispositions and dislikes. For cultivating individuality sharing and reacting are necessary!
When you draw lines you close things off from each other. So while this may make the site ‘prettier’ for random browsers and customers, it doesn’t actually fix anything, it just partitions it.
Is individuality one desire getting manifested? Is one person’s freedom to the freedom of others? Is it unity if it is one telling all?
IMO, unity is when individuals agree about something from their own referential frameworks; if everybody comes to the same conclusion on their own, they’re unified.
Speaking as a magician (mod hat off), I joined this forum to increase my power and one of the areas I intended to use that – HAVE used that, and continue to do so – is to influence world events. This is what the larger part of my current work is about, one way or another.
Bridging the Divine Paradox was something I referred to in one of my first few posts back in 2013; using that ability to exert influence on the mass consciousness was the intended purpose. I have very little interest in mansions, strings of lovers, or whatever else, they just add complexity to life and more housework!
I don’t really get love spells, and I think people are quite often just reinforcing the bars of their own cage of obsession for the wrong person, and thereby not meeting the right person, but still, as a member, I don’t mind other people doing them, and having prominent topics and big debates, and even needing my time as a mod to sometimes sort out a dispute, maybe answer a question about the techniques where possible, or whatever.
I don’t feel that my free speech was limited by large amounts of the forum containing magick I have little to no interest in or basic enthusiasm for. There would be no harmony or even peaceful co-existence at all if we could each vote off a category of magick based on our own contempt for it, and concerns that it may harm more than help its practitioners.
Just an observation.
Luckily an active and motivated working group for my own interests already formed and has thrived for over 2 years, and we’ll be heading to pastures new for that kind of posting very shortly.
Gotcha. And of course it is his privilege to do as he likes with his forum. He’s the one that has to deal with the fall out from his actions, not me.
Not remotely. When someone shares their political opinions or ideologies and they catch a debate from it, that is called discourse, provided none of their opponents in debate are actually trying to silence them. An argument which dissects another person’s opinion and bares it’s flaws is not remotely the same thing as silencing their opinion altogether. The person still has the freedom to retort in kind. As long as no action is taken to muzzle the voice of either side, no freedoms have been trampled upon.
It’s a huge difference and not remotely hypocritical.
I’m romance-repulsed, I find the love spells rapey, boundary-pushing and very disturbing, and yeah, maybe I do think less of the people that do them, but this planet is designed to allow that sort of thing and I signed up to be here in the middle of it. I usually mute them on sight unless I have something I think could be accurate and helpful. My ability to comment was not limited except by my own code and the rules requiring we be mature about it.
I’m allowed my opinions, everybody is, having different opinions isn’t dividing in itself, it makes us human not robots, it’s how you handle yourself around others with differing viewpoints that matters. A lot of people could do with more practice allowing others to think differently.
But in the end, to be fair, I don’t know that @Timothy does disagree. I is quite out of character isn’t it? I have a feeling his hands might be tied, which I suspected from the beginning and was why I talked about payment providers and such, given we’re in a climate where conservative views are being censored by big tech and the mainstream media has become mere propaganda across the Internet, he did the fairest thing he could and block all political talk.
In which case there’s no point repeating it all.
Honestly, I don’t care that politics was blocked on this forum. For a while, some left-wing viewpoints made me feel ill and I would get upset. I never came across too much of it on this forum to begin with, because it actually tended to lean more right-wing, but I feel like a lot of politics is a distraction from people fixing their own lives.
I started wondering why on earth would Timothy make this rule. I have absolutely no idea what his reasons are for this.
That said I’m going to speculate.
Perhaps it’s so that the BALG forum won’t be a target of out side forces that want to affect the upcoming American elections by trying to divide and conquer us by posing as different persons stirring up emotionally leaden opposing views just to cause our communications with each other to break down and in a small way further fracture our republic.
It wouldn’t surprise me if after the upcoming elections the rule gets dropped.
I had to look that up, but this is what I got from Quora…?
The black pill believes in a more nihilistic concept that the red pill doesn’t agree with. They believe that reality is rigged and that some people are destined to fail no matter what they do. They also oppose a lot of red pill teachings as offering false hope to these people destined to fail.
Uh… is this it? - this is some self-defeating incel/nihilist crap. Surely that the opposite of LHP. Guess that makes me red pilled, then.
@DavidSmith - unfortunately I missed the boat on that, and haven’t been around that long - I don’t suppose you feel like paraphrasing for us plebs that don’t know what you’re talking about…?
It’s pretty obvious, dude. The owners wanted to clean the site up and make it a haven for special snowflake ‘magickians’ in preparation for the mass launch of their e-book and paperback releases. This never had anything to do with magick or improving the forum.
It did, however, have EVERYTHING to do with capitalism and money, and in that light it was a smart decision, regardless of how underhanded it was presented to us. So the ruling (IMO) is simply that BALG is a business whose true mission statement should read “make money however opportunistic way we can”. Never a good thing.
They should probably re-name it Become A Living Capitalist. A savvy student might at least learn how money magick can sometimes work via observation.
The only comment I want to make is that ALL forms of political topic or posting where the core premise is party politics or identity politics, and politicised topics such as mass migration of peoples are now prohibited. I mention this because “special snowflake” is a term often applied to people engaging in identity politics.
Those are also spelled out in the document Timothy gave me as not permitted. They can be discussed freely via PM as covered in the OP.
@Woodsman81 you already know this, but for the benefit of newer members, many of us (me very much included) feel strongly about political issues of various kinds, I am personally anti-marxist among other things, and we conduct magick to pursue our desired goals.
There is no expectation that forum members cease this kind of work outside the forum, nor is anyone of less value if they do political-oriented magick - I do not share the OP belief that politics and magick simply do not mix, and this forum is not a cult, so agreeing with the forum owners, or moderators, or Regular members is in no way expected or required.
So the ban applies on all forms of political posting. And is being meticulously applied as such.
That’s not the issue. I do what I want regardless of what anyone else says; I merely choose to comply when it suits me or I genuinely care about a person.
What pissed me off was the underhanded way in which it was presented. This never had anything to do with magick, bettering of the self/forum, or any of the other nicely written B.S. spewed by the OP. This was a blatant attempt to cast a wider net for their book launch.
As I said, I totally understand the move from a business perspective. It’s the piss poor attempt to pass it off as an enlightened act that irked me. In other words, to quote Clint Eastwood: “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining…”.
I have no issues with someone being an upfront asshole. At all. It’s actually pretty respectable in an off-handed way, because a problem has been identified that can now be resolved. But to assume I am dumb enough to buy a lie and then attempt to pull it off on me is unforgivable.
Are we allowed to talk about long dead historical people like Dr. Dee? John Dee - Wikipedia
Or centuries old governments/occult topics from history, and some of these countries don’t even exist anymore?[quote=“Biffa_Bacon, post:267, topic:40540, full:true”]
I guess it would depend on whether there was any opinion given on a politically relevant or obviously political topic. Does sort of beg the question how the application of magic can be discussed effectively without some manner of politics seeping in, but there you go I guess.
[/quote]
You can’t. Not when you have ancient Egypt were the rulers were worship as gods.
the·oc·ra·cy
/THēˈäkrəsē/
noun
a system of government in which priests rule in the name of God or a god.
I would understand if there was better outline to this rule. Just to forbid a whole topic limits what this site COULD be. My entire believe system and personal practice is just cut off from me mentioning it here.
I guess it would depend on whether there was any opinion given on a politically relevant or obviously political topic. Does sort of beg the question how the application of magic can be discussed effectively without some manner of politics seeping in, but there you go I guess.
Edit: how come you deleted your post @Purple ? It was a valid point to raise.
