I looked for somewhere to ask for clarification on how or why, but there is nowhere to do so. The whole thing happens in secret, with no explanation and no recourse, which is about as antithetical to open and transparent discourse as is possible.
The intent, I believe, is for every person to develop a 'silent policeman' that asks them before every post 'Is this controversial? Is this an unpopular position on this forum? Does this position agree with the position of the owners/moderators of this forum.' In other words, the intent is discourage dissent from the predominant world view.
Well, that's how I see it. When this account gets banned, this comment will disappear as if it never existed, into the 'memory hole', and no one will ever know that someone disagrees. How that encourages rational debate is beyond my comprehension, perhaps I'm just not smart enough to be here.
At any rate, those who find it comforting that 'big brother' is keeping the comments safe for them will stay around, and those with dissenting views will be banned to oblivion and eventually leave, making the community a small selection of people who both agree with the philosophy, and find it uncomfortable to deal with views that challenge their philosophy.
This is very similar to what happened in Academia in the past 30 years, and succeeded in pushing out all of the interesting, eccentric and creative people, leaving only those who knew the party line, and moderated their speech accordingly. I think this is not healthy for creativity, but then, that's just my opinion, and obviously the forum owner/moderators disagree.
