For those of you too busy to keep abreast of the latest internet kurfluffle, the LiveJournal community has been in a bit of an uproar over the mass deletion of journal accounts and communities. It seems in the rush to “protect children” Barak Berkowitz, chairman and chief executive of Six Apart, got a bit carried away.

“Our decision here was not based on pure legal issues. It was based on what community we want to build and what we think is appropriate within that community and what’s not.”
–Barak Berkowitz, chairman and CEO, Six Apart

As with any broad swipe based on keywords, several child abuse survivor help groups and the like also got deleted in the process. The chairman has apologized for this and I’m sure this regrettable bit of collateral damage will be rectified.

However, more unknown is the status of the gray area content such as the slash fiction communities that got the cut. Slash fiction is SciFi/Fantasy/Comic fan fiction where one or more fictional characters has a sexual romp with another in all it’s lavishly detailed glory. It’s not really my cup of spanish fly, but whatever floats your panties.

That danged first amendment… or Liberals have morals?

Here in lies the problem of course, not everyone shares my liberal ambivalence with slash fiction and other harmless fetishes. Obviously most BoingBoing readers do as evidence by this hard-line first amendment quote:

“So the only policy that’s safe from turning into tyranny is to allow all speech, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Yes, people could be harmed; yes, even children. Freedom is more important.”

This stance nicely exemplifies the definition of liberal morality put forth by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt: The moral foundations theory, put forth by Haidt, states that there are five innate psychological morality systems. Liberals base most of their morals on the measure of Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity; whereas, conservatives balance these with the foundations of Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. This also can be described as a tendency to base morality on a individual rights basis versus a structural community basis. For more on this, I highly highly suggest you watch the fascinating video talk of Haidt on morality at the 2007 New Yorker Conference.

Rationality comes late to the game

Haidt also is known for his hypothesis that morality is largely instinctual and any rational statements are all developed post-hoc. This doesn’t mean that it is in-born only that one learns morality through mostly subconscious socio-emotional means rather than rational means. For more on this read “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment [PDF] and/or The Believer magazine’s interview with Haidt.

Haidt’s ideas are very interesting and they explain a lot more than George Lakoff’s strict father/nurturant parent model of conservative vs. liberal morality. Lakoff also has a lot of interesting things to say, but I’ve always been a bit skeptical of it’s veridicality because the metaphor is too convenient.

In any case, no matter which morality theory you side with, it’s obvious that conservatives and liberals have very different flavors of morality. If we want to develop a communication between the two sides, rather than pure chest pounding, we need both sides to better understand one another—and themselves. This stands true whether we are ones to fantasize about the Jesus references in Narnia or the homosexual subtext of Sam and Frodo.

Friday’s Zombie Mob was a rousing success! I went down to Justin Herman and road for a bit with Critical Mass then met up with the zombie horde. I tried to stop them with my bicycle, but I was overpowered by the terrifyingly ugly Rubin zombie.

I had hoped that my bicycle helmet would protect me from their ferocious appetite for my cortex; however, as you can see from the photo they got past it’s defenses. My zombie alter-ego didn’t want to leave his bicycle but he had seemly lost all coordination and could only fall over the handlebars and walk it along.

The highlight of the day would have to be when one of the zombie horde sat down at the dianetics booth, stress meter in hand, screaming “Brains! Brains!” And in the background other zombies screaming “brainwash!” Oh and there was the one sorta freaked out teenager with the balloons that I shambled after yelling “Baaalloooooooon!”

After running home and washing the blood off, I went to the Amon Tobin concert, which was amazing. As I texted to my friend after the show:

Pure relentless funky evil has been driven into my skull and has infected me with an alien virus.

That pretty much sums up the absolutely incredible show.

p.s. CNET blogged about the zombie mob

Great interview with Al Gore on the Daily Show. My favorite part is how he compared John Stewart to the jesters in the Middle Ages who were the only ones who could speak the truth without getting their heads choped off.

It’s an interesting analogy. The concept of a jester actually has origins before the middle ages, but mostly people’s impression of one comes from the romanticized Middle Ages. Wikipedia has the following to say about jesters:

The jester was symbolic twin of the king.[1] All jesters and fools in those days were thought of as special cases whom God had touched with a childlike madness—a gift, or perhaps a curse.

Some Jesters probably were mad or otherwise mentally disabled but not all were, and Al Gore is right that several were known for their humorous political commentry. Probably one who most reflects this is Stańczyk, a court jester in Poland in the early 1500s, who became a celebrated folk hero and is still considered to be an important historical figure. Again quoting wikipedia:

Sta≈Ñczyk has been always considered to have been much more than a mere entertainer. He is remembered as a man of great intelligence and a political philosopher gifted with formidable insight into Poland’s current and future situation. He used his job to criticize and warn his contemporaries by the use of satire. His witty jokes often pertained to current political or court matters. Sta≈Ñczyk’s remarks and jokes were preserved by numerous contemporary writers and historians, who praised him for fighting hypocrisy in the name of truth. [emphasis mine]

Looking forward at the history of tomorrow, I would not be surprised if John Stewart (and Stephen Colbert) become equally important historical figures. The presence in the historical landscape may be more lasting and in a way more potent than our current president; in the least, they will be more fondly remembered.

Tomorrow, Fri the city goes a bit haywire…

• Zombiemob – 6pm – starting at market and sutter and heads towards Union Square
• Pillowfight – 6pm – Justin Herman Plaza
• Critical Mass – 5:30pm – Justin Herman Plaza
• North American Courier Championships 2007 registration day – 2-6pm – House of Shields

I don’t give a damn about the bike courier, but I do think a very short critical mass and then get taken by zombies along market is in order.

Heads up thanks to SFist “Like Dropping Mentos in Coke, Only With Bikes”

Expect the playa to be packed with Glowfur jackets, skirts, etc. this year

The Maker Faire is over, my finals are over, and NifNaks.com is mostly up and running. I have been working fairly non-stop every day for several weeks, and last week I had at least two nights with only 2 hours of sleep. I’m still working full time and there is still stuff to do but life feels a whole lot more manageable now, and I should be able to get a full night’s rest most nights.

So yesterday night after my last final, I poured myself a gin and tonic, shutdown the responsibility part of my brain, and played the videogame Bully for several hours. It was great!

I won’t have another night like that for a while though since:

• I need to clean up the mess I made while I was ignoring my life and organization (there’s a huge pile around my secretary at home)
• Buzzed Bee is tomorrow
• Amon Tobin is Fri
• NifNaks.com needs work put into it (especially with the enhanced traffic we are now getting)
• Need to do end of month finances
• and we should plan a bit more for our Anniversary trip to Hawaii.