Was FLS permanently banned?

brooke

New
The question was asked in the latest thread to be closed by the admins, but no admin has answered the question, as far as I can tell. Just curious if she received a permanent ban from the forum or simply a suspension.

Thanks
 
I think it's silly to ban people unless they are spambot spamming or engaging in hate speech. Banning someone because you've decided they don't argue with you the way you'd like is really telling, but it's not my forum and I know fls rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over the years (which actually puts her in good company on this forum). My issue is with banning someone who has been a contributing member for many years in a secretive way.

This forum was so much stronger in the early years when Alex was genuinely curious about the existence of psi and had a real desire to "follow the data"...now he's 100% certain he's right about the existence of psi and the moderation has unfortunately followed suit. We now have a true echo chamber who feels empowered to belittle anyone who dare question this certainty and discuss the limitations of the data and the evidence. It demonstrates a real insecurity on the part of proponents who will no longer discuss the data, imo. Sure, it's comfortable to have this place on the web where everyone pretends that the discussion is over, but it's hardly productive towards improving psi's profile in mainstream science, which I still think is one of the most important goals we have as proponents. I know there are many hard-liners here who will say "screw mainstream", and have no interest in convincing anyone about psi, and I get that, to a point, but I still hold out hope that the existence of psi will eventually permeate the mainstream ideology, and I believe that pretending the discussion is over is counter-productive towards that goal.

I thought Johann's recent post in which he described Jay as a fair and knowledgeable opponent was particularly telling as to the state of affairs here...Again, Johann called Jay a fair and knowledgeable opponent. Let that sink in. I wonder what the more ideological proponents would say about that, since they seemed to like nothing more than flaming the living daylights out of Jay while offering nothing of substance about the statistical issues he was raising regarding "the data". This doesn't surprise me, though, since Johann is actually interested in engaging mainstream science with the evidence for psi. Bravo to him and Max for their work, and I eagerly look forward to whatever they do next!

Well, anyway, this rant might get me banned now (who knows or cares anymore). In the beginning, as a moderate proponent, I thought this would be a great place to learn more about the evidence for psi...and I really enjoyed the forum in those early years and I learned a ton...then Alex banned me from the old forum because I dared ask why the Pam Reynolds case was being offered up by forum users as evidence of a controlled experiment in NDE research...I rejoined when Alex extended the olive branch to banned users after the new forum was created, but I found this forum more ideological and polarized, and less about following the data. Sadly, now I only check in occasionally to see how far off the rails the forum has gone and who is currently driving the train...

Brooke (Berkelon)
 
I agree. The gyrations people needed to go through in order to prove FLS was being deliberately dishonest were like something you would see at Cirque du Soleil. I personally found her maddening at times. And at times did call for her to be perm banned. But eventually I found that when I engaged her one on one a genuineness came through that was not present in group discussions.

Personally I would venture a guess that in real life Linda probably likes to tease people. I'm a terrible teaser and I see something of that in Linda for sure.

I think only obvious spam bots should be banned, as you say.

Chuck (teagueblue, mandrake, fire, chuck.drake.....)
 
I don't think she was banned for those reasons. She was probably (I don't know) banned for continually "playing games" and if anyone cares to go back through the history of the forum (I was not there BTW) you can see how many people were infuriated with her.

The Pam Reynolds case was not an experiment (as you know), it was a last ditch attempt to save a life. She didn't have to reveal her NDE to the world after telling the doctors at Barrow what happened to her (as soon as she woke up) ..she could have put it away and that would have been a real shame because although it wasn't an experiment, the parameters of the operation and the careful monitoring coupled with her observations have provided extremely strong evidence that the mind/psyche can function independently of the brain.

The sceptical folklore about the case persists but it's not based on the facts.
 
Yes she is permanently banned (in as much as anything in this life is permanent).

David

It is not nice of me, but I have to admit: yes, it is good she is banned, although it is sad that this had to happen.
Somehow she managed to infuriate me every time because of her obfuscating way of reasoning. I am sure many other participants of this forum know the feeling...
 
It is not nice of me, but I have to admit: yes, it is good she is banned, although it is sad that this had to happen.
Somehow she managed to infuriate me every time because of her obfuscating way of reasoning. I am sure many other participants of this forum know the feeling...

Yes, we should certainly protect people from the discomfort that comes from not being able to understand...
 
This forum was so much stronger in the early years when Alex was genuinely curious about the existence of psi and had a real desire to "follow the data"...now he's 100% certain he's right about the existence of psi and the moderation has unfortunately followed suit. We now have a true echo chamber who feels empowered to belittle anyone who dare question this certainty and discuss the limitations of the data and the evidence. It demonstrates a real insecurity on the part of proponents who will no longer discuss the data, imo. Sure, it's comfortable to have this place on the web where everyone pretends that the discussion is over, but it's hardly productive towards improving psi's profile in mainstream science, which I still think is one of the most important goals we have as proponents. I know there are many hard-liners here who will say "screw mainstream", and have no interest in convincing anyone about psi, and I get that, to a point, but I still hold out hope that the existence of psi will eventually permeate the mainstream ideology, and I believe that pretending the discussion is over is counter-productive towards that goal.
I can't speak for Alex, but although I would probably be classed as a proponent, I would class myself as extremely curious and very suspicious of the conventional scientific take on issues like consciousness, and evolution.

Nevertheless, I have been stunned over the years at how poorly sceptics of various sorts have performed in the podcasts. This has certainly influenced me a lot!

I have been amazed by how little guidance I have had from Alex regarding my role here (though I had a discussion with him and several other people before banning FLS), so I am speaking from a completely personal point of view. Although I don't want to go into specific cases, I can absolutely assure you that there is no witch hunt of sceptics going on! Indeed, we still have several total sceptics who contribute regularly. I would also encourage any sceptic reading this to come on and try to make a the conventional scientific case in as effective a way as possible. All I ask is that everyone here - sceptic or not - presents an honest case without playing games, and without abuse.

I certainly don't want to "screw mainstream", because obviously somehow all the topics we discuss have to relate to conventional science in some way! What I do think has happened, is that people realise that the level of debate here is fairly high, and that simply ranting and sneering isn't acceptable. I would say that supporting the sceptical position in a thought out way has become really hard because in a sense you really have to explain away the whole of Irreducible Mind, lots of NDE evidence, n-fold blinded medium studies, Dean Radin's presentiment experiments, etc - which takes some doing!

Even if we don't get too much sceptical debate here, there is still plenty to debate, because the only approximate consensus here, is that the standard scientific position will need to be modified!

David
 
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