This redacted (renaming) routes is out of control!

Tony, you keep trying to draw lines from route redactions to Nazism and Stalinism, but your lines get lost somewhere in your assertions that "going down this road always ends up in mass murder". How exactly? Please explain how you think Stalin's murderous crackdowns on those who threatened his power (kulaks, intellectuals, Jews, Armenians, etc) is directly analogous to minority groups in the US not tolerating hate speech? Or how an opportunistic populist rising to power by whipping up fear and hate for an already-persecuted group in the Weimar Republic (or 2016 America for that matter) and then leading a genocide of that minority group is connected to removing offensive climbing route names from a private website? If you can draw a step-wise, logical line from route names to mass murder while keeping a straight face, I'll be thoroughly impressed. Riling up the majority to suppress the minority with fear and hate is not and has never been the same as trying to limit the reach and power of hate. Alt-right and white power movements and BLM protestors are not "two equal sides", no matter how much Fox, OANN, or Trump try to make them out to be.

Moderating speech is not the same thing in all cases, and the fetishization of free speech is a convenient club for you to wield against anyone who suggests that we should not tolerate hate speech. Hate speech is actively harmful, it seeks to disenfranchise groups and maintain the status quo for those in power. As others have said, it should not be tolerated or given "fair" consideration in an egalitarian society, let alone on a private forum. My heart goes out to all those unjustly persecuted, unemployed, shunned white masses you seem to know about - but if you think that's the big problem to solve in modern America then I suggest you look outside your bubble. Maybe read about race dynamics in 20th/21st century America to draw conclusions instead of trying to thump tangentially relevant history books.

It's too bad mental gymnastics don't win you any medals...

Tony C wrote:

Millions of First Amendment advocates are experiencing far more than simply being lectured or criticized. Some examples of this include, but are not limited to: losing their jobs, losing their friends, losing their spouses, losing their children, losing their legal protections, being blacklisted.

Actions have consequences. Kind of like lying about your military service and earning a silver star, eh Tony?

Big Red wrote:

Moderating speech is not the same thing in all cases, and the fetishization of free speech is a convenient club for you to wield against anyone who suggests that we should not tolerate hate speech. Hate speech is actively harmful, it seeks to disenfranchise groups and maintain the status quo for those in power. As others have said, it should not be tolerated or given "fair" consideration in an egalitarian society, let alone on a private forum. 

Hate speech is, by nature, subjective. One cannot navigate the modern world without risking being offended at some point, language moderation or not. As an alaskan native, I can say the majority of those in our community do not care about the word "eskimo" for example, and use it, yet the people screeching that it's hate speech and offensive are mostly woke white people on twitter. 

basically, grow a pair. of course there are limits but we are raising a generation of weaklings through this padding of society, which is why most twitter wokesters are also morbidly obese and living in their parent's houses still. 

Tony C

You get it.

Thx for making the effort to try to explain history to those who are ignorant about it.

The phrase... “... are destined to re-live it” is still true.

Wait, I thought we agreed to bring this thread back onto the rails? I guess this thread is what happens when people think "big" ideas free of evidence count as saying something useful. Bummer the culture warriors latched on here.

SinRopa wrote:

BigRed, in your opinion, would a route named "Kill Whitey" qualify as hate speech?  https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106856794/kill-whitey

If not, why?  I'm pretty sure that a route named "Kill [insert other race here]" would be gone already.  If so, as an admin, what are your thought's on MP tolerance of the route?  Are some races more deserving of this private forum's protection than others?

Nice SinRopa. This seems like it COULD help steer us back to route names. My understanding is that the way MP redaction works is that someone reports a route name, then other folks decide if it's a problem. If you find that route name offensive, you should report it. (If you don't find it offensive, why not? Does your answer here answer your questions above?) If you flag it and it then doesn't get redacted, you should email those doing the redacting (Nick? onX? some volunteers?); I'd be interested to hear why or why not. That might be moving toward an on-topic discussion based on evidence, instead of one based on assumptions.

SinRopa wrote:

BigRed, in your opinion, would a route named "Kill Whitey" qualify as hate speech?  https://www.mountainproject.com/route/106856794/kill-whitey

If not, why?  I'm pretty sure that a route named "Kill [insert other race here]" would be gone already.  If so, as an admin, what are your thought's on MP tolerance of the route?  Are some races more deserving of this private forum's protection than others?

Valid point, however some pertinent subtleties may apply....

1.  Nobody has flagged it yet

2.  Since “Whitey” likely put it up (have no idea really, just guessing) Whitey gets the joke and has no issue.  

Personally, I consider a few things to determine whether or not I, myself, agree with the redaction 

Who named it and what was their intention (if it can be reasonably discerned with reasonable probability)  my default is “tie goes to the runner” and if not high probability of egregious impropriety, leave as is.   Majority of the time, I’m against redaction.  But I also struggle to give much of a fuck if someone else is strongly offended and really really wants it off the database. That’s what eye rolls were invented for. 

RJ B wrote:

Go tell that to a domestic violence victim who was told to just go to therapy while her abuser got off with a warning. 

Let me know how it goes

Seriously? I was in an abusive relationship for years. My ex tried to kick me down a flight of stairs during an argument, punch me in the face while I'm asleep, etc. I don't give a fuck about a route called bitch slap and I can't imagine any other abuse victim would either. 

SinRopa wrote:

I don't find it offensive, but it seems to clearly run afoul of MP's self-published guidelines on "no longer [tolerating] names that are discriminatory in nature, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry."

I mean, I don't think it does. Because I'm not offended by it either. Maybe beacuse I've never been in a situation where someone said that and then proceeded to threaten me? So it it doesn't seem 'discriminatory in nature' to me. Nor, apparently, to you? Since it also doesn't elicit any reaction from you? It seems to be associate with angsty teens to me.

I do know for a fact that it was repeatedly flagged in the past (back when MP had the public database showing what routes had been flagged and what names were under review), but it was never redacted.  Seems like an obvious double standard, yes?

I don't think we know yet. For that we'd need someone to email the folks making that decision and find out why they made it. You should talk to one of the people who flagged it and have them send that email. Then share the response. It's a lot of work, but we can hardly judge the reasoning when we don't know what it is. 

Or, to put it another way, lots of things 'seem' lots of ways. But presumably we want better than 'seems,' we want 'know,' right?

Tony C wrote:

It is sometimes difficult for me (an old man) to understand how such a large segment of America has somehow managed to not learn HOW Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin and Mao came to power. You seem to know that what they did was bad. But you don't seem to have learned how they managed to convince so many people around them that what they were doing was good. They did so by appealing to 1) their sincere altruism and/or 2) their false sense of power through virtue signalling. Many of these leaders were democratically elected. They didn't initially rise to power through force. One of their most powerful tools was convincing people that censorship was a good thing. I keep losing sight of the fact that so many of you younger folks have simply been fed a load of shit in the academy, were pampered by your parents and are being told by some politicians that you have rights you really don't have and you deserve things you really don't deserve. This has led you to think this wokeism is progress and is good.

Once again, you posses a great superpower to know everybody's education, upbringing and personal experience to make these grand conclusions. 

Maybe, just maybe, people are not as ignorant as you think, but just reach different conclusions than you.

Karinia Gaston wrote:

You don't speak for everyone. I can't imagine the mental gymnastics you put your brain through to not understand an abuse victim feeling upset about the normalization of abuse in their community. And if you still can't imagine it after some actual thought, you don't need to. We definitely exist.

You don't speak for everyone either, and you're accusatory "mental gymnastics" comment is dismissive and offensive in a way that I bet my life you would condemn if I said it to a women. It's ok though, I'm used to people dismissing and trivializing my the beatings I took because I have a penis and my abuser didn't.

Tony C wrote:

It is sometimes difficult for me (an old man) to understand how such a large segment of America has somehow managed to not learn HOW Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Lenin and Mao came to power. You seem to know that what they did was bad. But you don't seem to have learned how they managed to convince so many people around them that what they were doing was good. They did so by appealing to 1) their sincere altruism and/or 2) their false sense of power through virtue signalling. Many of these leaders were democratically elected. They didn't initially rise to power through force. One of their most powerful tools was convincing people that censorship was a good thing. I keep losing sight of the fact that so many of you younger folks have simply been fed a load of shit in the academy, were pampered by your parents and are being told by some politicians that you have rights you really don't have and you deserve things you really don't deserve. This has led you to think this wokeism is progress and is good.

You are truly misguided. Just a side note: admins don't moderate forum threads. Hitler and Stalin didn't come to power by paving their road with good intentions or appealing to altruism. They rose to power by stoking the fire of hatred and fear, beating their opponents into submission, and then outright killing those who might have threatened them. I'd encourage you to read more about the history you claim to know since you are trying to spin thin conclusions out of an incomplete understanding. This view of "pampered" young people who are "brainwashed" by higher education and are going to buy into murderous censorship has no basis in reality and you (and most folks who look down on those younger than them) struggle to find any coherent evidence to support it. 

Back to route names: To answer the previous question, yes I think that more protections and consideration should be extended to the groups that aren't in power. Hence the forum for women, for example. I would also agree that route names that simply advocate violence should be redacted. We're already 15+ pages into this thread and people might have missed that the redaction process was ad-hoc, based on user flagging, and meant as a temporary band-aid, so it missed plenty of names.

If the point of redacting route names is to erase history, then I personally think it's overreaching control due to the mere possibility of offensiveness.  IS there a special review committee that oversees these issues, and what agenda(s) might the members have?  If the true original name for a route is overruled and deemed unfit for historical record, I suppose we can just go ahead and erase any historical content in any book, paper, etc. that might have any inkling of offending somebody, somewhere, at some time.  Either keep the original names for all of history to be able to see and judge the FA'ers, or let's rename just about everything into rosey-toned kindergarten names.

"Grand Theft Avocado"?  My mother's beloved avocado tree was ransacked one night, and now I can't sleep with a route name like that in my face. Take it down!

"Nubbin Drubbin"?  An obvious reference to fondling female genitalia - offensive!

And all those Kung Fu Theater names in Zion? Terribly offensive!

etc etc etc...

David Lyons wrote:

If the point of redacting route names is to erase history, then I personally think it's overreaching control due to the mere possibility of offensiveness.

Yes, if that were the goal, that seems like a bad goal. I see no reason to think that is anyone's goal, do you?

 IS there a special review committee that oversees these issues, and what agenda(s) might the members have? 

There was a post about forming such a committee. But it sounds like neither of us are even sure if it exists. Let alone what their actual goals might be.

 If the true original name for a route is overruled and deemed unfit for historical record, I suppose we can just go ahead and erase any historical content in any book, paper, etc. that might have any inkling of offending somebody, somewhere, at some time.  Either keep the original names for all of history to be able to see and judge the FA'ers, or let's rename just about everything into rosey-toned kindergarten names.

"Grand Theft Avocado"?  My mother's beloved avocado tree was ransacked one night, and now I can't sleep with a route name like that in my face. Take it down!

"Nubbin Drubbin"?  An obvious reference to fondling female genitalia - offensive!

And all those Kung Fu Theater names in Zion? Terribly offensive!

etc etc etc...

All this part seems to be pointlessly complaining about something that probably isn't the case, no? If the people overseeing name redacting AREN'T trying to erase history, then this part of the comment is pointless, right?

Karinia Gaston wrote:

You don't speak for everyone. I can't imagine the mental gymnastics you put your brain through to not understand an abuse victim feeling upset about the normalization of abuse in their community. And if you still can't imagine it after some actual thought, you don't need to. We definitely exist.

Not to disagree, but I'm having trouble understanding how a route named "Bitch Slap" is normalizing domestic abuse. 

Oxford's definition of Bitch-slap : "deliver a stinging blow to someone, typically in order to humiliate them".

I don't understand how naming a route after being slapped humiliatingly is comparable to normalizing domestic abuse. Is it accurate to say that people will become more comfortable with domestic violence because they saw a route on MP called "Bitch Slap"?

Big Red wrote:

You are truly misguided. Just a side note: admins don't moderate forum threads. Hitler and Stalin didn't come to power by paving their road with good intentions or appealing to altruism. They rose to power by stoking the fire of hatred and fear, beating their opponents into submission, and then outright killing those who might have threatened them. I'd encourage you to read more about the history you claim to know since you are trying to spin thin conclusions out of an incomplete understanding. This view of "pampered" young people who are "brainwashed" by higher education and are going to buy into murderous censorship has no basis in reality and you (and most folks who look down on those younger than them) struggle to find any coherent evidence to support it. 

Back to route names: To answer the previous question, yes I think that more protections and consideration should be extended to the groups that aren't in power. Hence the forum for women, for example. I would also agree that route names that simply advocate violence should be redacted. We're already 15+ pages into this thread and people might have missed that the redaction process was ad-hoc, based on user flagging, and meant as a temporary band-aid, so it missed plenty of names.

The reason Hitler and Styling had so much staunch, cult like support is because they built themselves up as standing for what was right and justified. Especially after the economic collapse of Germany, and years of backwards feudalism under the czars. They were the beginning of a unique period in history in which utter evil hid itself in the guise of a savior. Hitler didn't stir up anything when he was first elected; he rode in and manipulated the anger of the German people who had been humiliated in their loss to the Allies, whether justified or not. Certainly he and Stalin viciously destroyed entire races, but it was their cult of personality that allowed them to build up the power to do so. It was only once they started to grasp for more power than was allotted when their opposition began to take notice, and then with their loyal base they began to have their nights of broken glass and so on. At least Hitler did. Stalin rather road Lenin's coattails into a system set up for absolute dictatorial power, communism, and then went about ensuring there were no threats to it.  

Karinia Gaston wrote:

Comparing the two doesn't make one okay or normal.

I'm sorry that's your takeaway from my comment Karinia. 

Thankfully few (still too many) people think getting bitched slapped or murdered is ok or normal. I was just pointing out that one is even worse than the other.

Garry Reiss wrote:

I'm sorry that's your takeaway from my comment Karinia. 

Thankfully few (still too many) people think getting bitched slapped or murdered are ok or normal. I was just pointing out that one is even worse than the other.

So one could say that, perhaps, the FAist named the route Bitch Slap to warn people that this route sucks, and climbing it is similar to voluntarily being bitch slapped?

Daniel Chode Rider wrote:

So one could say that, perhaps, the FAist named the route Bitch Slap to warn people that this route sucks, and climbing it is similar to voluntarily being bitch slapped?

That.. or.. Or! They were a POS bigoted cis gendered white male that not only needs to check their privilege and stop perpetuating domestic violence against women, but needs to atone for unatonable sin. I can't believe this community, how DARE you go out and have fun outdoors and name things silly or crude names, you un-woke literal hitlers. 

Tony C wrote:

Jamila,

You are describing two infrequently discussed, dangerous and wrongheaded ideologies that used to be called Racism and Sexism before those words were reinvented by leftist idealogues. Thank you for calling out the behavior on this website that is based on these ideologies.

A little history for those of you who asked me for it, despite the fact that it is clearly not the topic of this thread.

Adolph Hitler (National Socialist German Worker’s Party)

Joseph Stalin (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party)

Vladimir Lenin (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party)

Hugo Chavez (United Socialist Party of Venezuela)

Pol Pot (Cambodian Democratic Party)

All of these leaders had these things in common:

1. They openly advocated for the censorship of speech.
2. They rose to power by being democratically elected on a virtuous platform of social justice.
3. They only openly used force to control people AFTER they were elected and controlled speech.
4. They openly encouraged people to rat each other out in every private sphere. Just like here on MP.
5. Many of their followers encouraged their government to use force at the beginning.
6. Many of their followers turned in their friends at the beginning. They publicly mocked and ridiculed dissenters. They made blacklists of dissenters. They drove dissenters into hiding. It tore apart the people of their nations.
7. Many of their followers openly advocated for censoring speech and argued with each other over the relative merits of various rules governing public speech. It was not long before they realized their rules were ultimately subjective and were being used by leaders to condone far worse behavior than the original offense they were trying to eliminate with their rules.
8. The cries for freedom eventually toppled every one of these leaders and the tyrannical freedom-hating ideology behind their rules.

Mao Zedong was not democratically elected, but came to power within the Communist Party (A party that openly condones censoring speech) by convincing people he cared about women’s rights. He formed committees that decided if people were treating women the “right” way and severely punished those who didn’t speak in accordance with their rules. Today this party involuntarily sterilizes women, involuntarily aborts their babies, and beats and kills women who don’t support their social justice ideology. 

I agree it is short sighted for Democrats to argue against the democratic concept of free speech just because it suits their needs.  If you can argue President Trump incited the capitol riot with his speech, I can argue these "private" companies acted with direction from Congress when they moved to either invoke the 25th Amendment or Impeach President Trump.  Tellingly the censorship is only on a certain, but entire group of people with views opposite those in power, whether the post is violent or not. This demonstrates the Congress in power is controlling the Tech companies

Ironically Democrats are calling the riot an assault to Democracy YET advocating censorship. Censorship is a greater threat to Democracy than the capitol riot. Riots as awful as they are, are common around the world, now and throughout history are hardly a "threat to Democracy." It is evident they were not a well organized, well trained unit, but a disorganized unruly mob. Now a common riot of a few lasting a few hours, is used to justify impeachment, silence the President, mute millions of people, and set a precedent for taking away freedom of speech.

Ironically, left leaning Washington posts' slogan is "Democracy dies in darkness" while they are advocating for and celebrating censorship as a win. It does not have to be THE government censoring for Democracy to die. While you may argue Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon are private companies, they have cultivated public dependence as communication channels, forming effecive monopolies or oligarchies. As you witnessed, they did that quickly and effortlessly. Maybe this scenario wasn't envisoned by the founding fathers, but when big tech (or DNC-Congress controlled big tech) has the unilateral power to censor millions, democracy dies.

it is never the end of the story.  The law is fluid based on interpretations making precedent, and amendments.  For example the 18th Amendment was created, then repealed.   You don't have to like Donald Trump, but do not "cut off your nose to spite your face."

sherb wrote:

I agree it is short sighted for Democrats to argue against the democratic concept of free speech just because it suits their needs.  If you can argue President Trump incited the capitol riot with his speech, I can argue these "private" companies acted with direction from Congress when they moved to either invoke the 25th Amendment or Impeach President Trump.  Tellingly the censorship is only on a certain, but entire group of people with views opposite those in power, whether the post is violent or not. This demonstrates the Congress in power is controlling the Tech companies

Ironically Democrats are calling the riot an assault to Democracy YET advocating censorship. Censorship is a greater threat to Democracy than the capitol riot. Riots as awful as they are, are common around the world, now and throughout history are hardly a "threat to Democracy." It is evident they were not a well organized, well trained unit, but a disorganized unruly mob. Now a common riot of a few lasting a few hours, is used to justify impeachment, silence the President, mute millions of people, and set a precedent for taking away freedom of speech.

Ironically, left leaning Washington posts' slogan is "Democracy dies in darkness" while they are advocating for and celebrating censorship as a win. It does not have to be THE government censoring for Democracy to die. While you may argue Twitter, Facebook, Apple, Google, and Amazon are private companies, they have cultivated public dependence as communication channels, forming effecive monopolies or oligarchies. As you witnessed, they did that quickly and effortlessly. Maybe this scenario wasn't envisoned by the founding fathers, but when big tech (or DNC-Congress controlled big tech) has the unilateral power to censor millions, democracy dies.

it is never the end of the story.  The law is fluid based on interpretations making precedent, and amendments.  For example the 18th Amendment was created, then repealed.   You don't have to like Donald Trump, but do not "cut off your nose to spite your face."

They’re stopping that POS from using lies to undermine democracy and trying to overturn a legit election.
Kind of different from just saying “censorship.”