community

Everything, Everywhere at Eckhart

A few years ago, my community’s library was attacked by an arsonist that destroyed most of their collection as well as caused severe damage to the main library building. It was really heartbreaking.

While the building was being renovated, the library set up a branch location in a local strip mall. It had a big banner above it “Eckhart Public Library.” Now that the library building is alive again, they have been building their collection for quite a while. I go to borrow videos. I also borrow books and videos from the inter library loan service available through their participation in the statewide Evergreen consortium.

Libraries aren’t just for books. The nearby Allen County Public Library has a makerspace. One time I used their tools to transfer a video I had made onto a DVD. They had a 3-d printer. Locally in Auburn, our library offers many digital services. One that I used last night was Kanopy.

Kanopy is a video streaming service that is optimized as a service for libraries. The library provides access to the service and the patron can stream the videos offered by the service. Months ago, I had watched “Parasite” there. Last night, I saw “Everything, Everywhere All at Once.” It was fun to see it again after seeing it in the theater when it was new. The next video that I hope to watch is Beau is Afraid with Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Ari Aster. I saw news about the Aster film when it was in the theater but never went when I had a chance.

The library is welcoming and a nice space to visit. Having an online presence makes it even more useful. They offer Wi-Fi hotspots for people to borrow. The fire happened in the middle of the summer reading program so there were more books checked out than normal so they that they could rebuild a small offering right away as they were returned.

I was concerned when they closed the temporary branch location before the new library was fully ready. However, it was providential that they did because shortly after that, the pandemic hit. The amount of money saved on not renting a facility no one could use could be folded into their renewed presence.

It breaks my heart for librarians who only want to provide the best service to their patrons are forced to spend time dealing with attacks on their professionalism and the people they serve. Even more so that a small number of people are filing complaints to harass communities that they don’t reside in. It’s shameful that people are losing out in valuable services because of a few troublemakers. According to the Washington Post’s research “The majority of the 1,000-plus book challenges analyzed by The Post were filed by just 11 people.”

Libraries are more than just books and offer lots of services. Our library here has a teen library with youth-oriented activities and resources. I’m glad that the community rallied around our library after the fire. It was definitely something that people who threaten librarians and libraries must never think of as a possibility–that libraries are an asset to a community and not a threat that needs bow to such a limited view of a library’s mission.

Black hole moderation

If someone violates community guidelines, they can be given a suspension or ban.

A suspension is a temporary hold. It could be a warning that is meaningful for someone who is pushing the boundaries too far and needs a digital rap on the knuckles with a ruler. A ban, forbidding access to the site, can be appropriate for people who are malicious and harming a web site’s community. Once they are pushed out, over time, their influence will be fade.

Black hole moderation is more demonstrative way of rejecting an account. To implement a black hole moderation decision, all content created by the user will be erased from the site. The incentive for such users to leave a “mark on the trees” will be eliminated.

Although black hole moderation could be a disincentive to bad actors, it might be painful to the site. It would not be something done lightly. For example, content that is copied into a reply or reposted might also be deleted. Technical solutions for such a search and destroy mission would be interesting to develop.

In a simple example, black hole moderation on DeviantArt would remove all of the user’s messages, art and interaction. On a message board, the hosts would remove all of the user’s messages and interaction with other users. Very difficult examples of a black hole moderation would occur on crowdsourced sites like Wikipedia and Fandom.com.

Adding black hole moderation to social media sites might be more useful and less difficult.

The purpose of the black hole moderation is to give a disincentive to the troll who incessantly adds bad content that doesn’t quite breach community standards but when taken as a whole is harmful.

If privacy of an individual can justify the right to be forgotten, black hole moderation embodies the right to forget.

A Sacrifice for Billions; A Sacrifice of Billions

Sometimes I think a little expansively. I wonder what I would be willing to sacrifice for billions of lives. Quite an astounding proposition. I have no idea how such a thing could come to pass.

People are willing to sacrifice for one. Some would offer their life to save a loved one. Others have sacrificed themselves to save a child in their charge. It’s something that one can understand. I can contemplate whether it is something I would be willing to do. Their offering is celebrated as the work of a hero.

A soldier makes many sacrifices to save his platoon or to save the neighborhood or to save the nation. Such service leads to more sacrifice than just risking their life. The soldier might give up a career, his health and well-being, and time with loved ones. It’s still understandable how and why one would do that.

To sacrifice for billions, it suddenly becomes metaphysical. Beyond sacrificing one’s life, perhaps someone sacrifices not just their life, but the promised future life in the world to come. Many people may not believe such a concept, but to others it is a concrete reality. Would an individual suffer the unimaginable to protect not just a life or a nation but rather the possibility of any future at all? Such a sacrifice would not just be to save a race or a way of life or a community.

To sacrifice for billions, one would be sacrificing for things one did not agree with, for those who do not believe the same, those who are considered in the wrong. It would be toward the goal of preserving Life overall rather than a lesser group life or lives. Through the sacrifice, one would not be able to decide who is worthy of such grace.

In the opposite direction, it’s easy to see someone sacrifice another for themselves. To murder, to maim or to select another as less worthy and with no value to preserve. It is a form of insanity, but still common.

Some are willing to sacrifice a neighborhood, a nation or some abstract group counted as valueless. The victims may be the antagonist in a delusional story. The fable says that they are a threat, or of less value and more akin to an animal than human. This kind of sacrifice takes place too often. The access to weapons that make such horror easy is considered an unalienable right.

In decades past, such violence would be unimaginable but now is an ever-present reality. Places of worship, what should be the host of life and love, now must take steps to protect themselves. Rather than offering welcome to all as a sanctuary for the lost, the faith community becomes a victim of fear and must lock their doors.

For one to sacrifice billions for some gain is, unfortunately, possible to imagine without expansive imagination. The weapons, diseases and poisons are all available to sacrifice billions. That this is imaginable is, itself, abhorrent. In past centuries, it was possible for the great powers to sacrifice communities for some cause. Now the stakes are much higher. Thankfully, the destruction of this scale is only available to a few, but is available, nonetheless.

While some are capable sacrificing billions for their insane delusions, how many are willing to sacrifice for a group they will never see?

With an open mind, one can see how they could sacrifice to save another. In faiths that revel in a sacrifice as their central tenet, too few are willing to give up something for the benefit of the stranger, the ones they disagree with and those they abhor. A sacrifice for one’s friends can be done by anyone.

One can flip the story and prevent the insane from sacrificing for their selfish benefit. That has a much lower cost than those sacrifices of a teacher or a soldier. Why is whatever necessary to save a life considered impossible? It is never brought to the table of those who can write the words that can save lives.

What kind of sacrifices will bring life rather than death?