Hello,
I'm funkervogt, a new user who just fled the legendary forum at Kurzweilai.net following its deactivation. If there are any fellow refugees here, give me a shout out.
Hello,
I'm funkervogt, a new user who just fled the legendary forum at Kurzweilai.net following its deactivation. If there are any fellow refugees here, give me a shout out.
Welcome to the forum! Good to have you here. Do you know if the Kurzweil forums will be restored / relaunched?
Oh no what happened, I always loved that site even though I never made an account.
Welcome to the forum!
Good to have you here. Do you know if the Kurzweil forums will be restored / relaunched?
The moderators didn't say anything about relaunching the forum at any time. Simultaneous with the deletion of the forum, the Kurzweilai.net main page disabled the Comments feature for its content, which I took as a clear sign that they're ending all "social media" aspects of the site.
Oh no what happened, I always loved that site even though I never made an account.
The Kurzweilai.net forum was totally deleted today. Last November, the moderator announced, without clearly explaining the rationale, that the forum would be shut down on January 1. Several last-minute extensions kept bumping that deadline, but we finally ran out of luck today.
I'm not sure why Ray Kurzweil decided to do this, but my guess is he might have gotten tired of the negative user content and criticism of him and his theories. Ironically, the forum was much worse in the 2013-14, when there was almost no moderation, and the forum was overloaded with flame wars between very nasty people. Just when I thought the forum had turned a corner and stabilized, they decided to terminate it.
Welcome to the forum!
Good to have you here. Do you know if the Kurzweil forums will be restored / relaunched?
The moderators didn't say anything about relaunching the forum at any time. Simultaneous with the deletion of the forum, the Kurzweilai.net main page disabled the Comments feature for its content, which I took as a clear sign that they're ending all "social media" aspects of the site.
Oh no what happened, I always loved that site even though I never made an account.
The Kurzweilai.net forum was totally deleted today. Last November, the moderator announced, without clearly explaining the rationale, that the forum would be shut down on January 1. Several last-minute extensions kept bumping that deadline, but we finally ran out of luck today.
I'm not sure why Ray Kurzweil decided to do this, but my guess is he might have gotten tired of the negative user content and criticism of him and his theories. Ironically, the forum was much worse in the 2013-14, when there was almost no moderation, and the forum was overloaded with flame wars between very nasty people. Just when I thought the forum had turned a corner and stabilized, they decided to terminate it.
Oh I remember those days. RedQ was the worst, forever_freedom was basically toeing the line between anarcho-capitalist and plutocratic fascism, Spikosauropod stated his intention to destroy the forum, and I think there were also some neo-Nazis occasionally coming in? I just bowed out entirely around late 2016.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.
There would have been value in archiving this sort of thing. It is actually a loss to humanity that the forum's conversations are gone.
Agreed. While most of the Kurzweilai.net forum's discussions were redundant (e.g. - WAY too much talking about technological unemployment and socialism vs. capitalism), a small fraction of them were genuinely creative and insightful.
Fortunately, I don't think the forum is lost forever. In the four month lead-up to the forum's deletion, several users including myself made personal attempts to copy the forum. I crudely copied and pasted my hundreds of threads into Microsoft Notepad and saved them as .txt files, and more tech-savvy members tried to copy the whole site using software-based automation. I wouldn't be surprised if a ZIP file containing everything surfaced at some point, either from one of them or made by the Kurzweilai staff.
Let me add that the Kurzweilai.net forum that was terminated yesterday was actually the SECOND user forum to exist on that site. The first forum existed from 2001 - 2010, was called "Mind-X", and is archived here:
FINAL Mind-X posts: http://www.kurzweila...t/mindx/top.php
FIRST Mind-X posts: http://www.kurzweila...x/top.php?p=292
I hope the second forum (which was just called "Forum" and dispensed with the "Mind-X" title) is archived and made available as well.
A Kurzweilai.net forum user also tried to archive the second forum here: https://web.archive....lai.net/forums/
I'm not sure how stable or complete it is, though. It seems buggy.
Welcome! Sorry to hear about kurzweilAI.
Animator for a living, I do things other than gripe about the future! Twitter Youtube Newgrounds Website
Welcome aboard.
The principles of justice define an appropriate path between dogmatism and intolerance on the one side, and a reductionism which regards religion and morality as mere preferences on the other. - John Rawls
Welcome. Along with a scattered few others like purpose and nanostuff, you were one of the few KurzweilAI posters with a healthy blend of optimism and skepticism. The majority of the userbase tended to gravitate towards the unhealthy and irrational end of those two extremes.
^ And the big debates, mainly the ones about politics.
This website has a magic that makes people draw back here like moths to light.
Welcome. Along with a scattered few others like purpose and nanostuff, you were one of the few KurzweilAI posters with a healthy blend of optimism and skepticism. The majority of the userbase tended to gravitate towards the unhealthy and irrational end of those two extremes.
Are you a former Kurzweilai member?
Predictor, michael184, purpose, CNOT, GLOVE, and a few others were also intelligent, balanced people.
Welcome. Along with a scattered few others like purpose and nanostuff, you were one of the few KurzweilAI posters with a healthy blend of optimism and skepticism. The majority of the userbase tended to gravitate towards the unhealthy and irrational end of those two extremes.
Are you a former Kurzweilai member?
Predictor, michael184, purpose, CNOT, GLOVE, and a few others were also intelligent, balanced people.
Yep, Casey1987. I don't really agree on michael (one of his last posts was saying that literally nothing will change between now and 2030 besides minor iphone updates), but the others were certainly all good posters, purpose especially.
Welcome, CNOT! What exactly do you mean by "sinister?"
2) Sorry to hear Starspawn0 wasn't kind to you. He seems like such a fine fellow otherwise.
3) I can't help but imagine that some users— primarily RedQ and Spikosauropod— were definitely screaming about being persecuted and claiming that the forum shutting down was a leftist/"Democrass" conspiracy meant to silence their opinions in particular.
4) Was there possibly a funding problem? Or perhaps Google/Alphabet didn't approve of the forum being attached to Kurzweil's name?
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.
Welcome, CNOT! What exactly do you mean by "sinister?"
I dunno, it sounds more to me like the forum attracted a motley crew of cranks and mentally ill trolls that weren't removed due to a dearth of moderation.
And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future.
Welcome, CNOT! It's great to have you here.
I voluntarily left that forum for a number of reasons: (1) The lady moderator was forgiving all the worst trolls and allowing them back into the forum after they had been expelled, which to me meant the rules were useless and the forum was inherently hostile, dumbed down, and incorrigible. It soon got to the point that I hated even to visit the forum, whereas initially I hung out there all day long; (2) Some of the worst insulters of me, especially star0, were never punished at all. At the end most users still loved him just because he brought them news that those users were too lazy to find on their own; (3) The lady moderator wouldn't adopt my suggestions for cleaning out the trolls based on an objective mathematical algorithm I developed; (4) The lady moderator enthusiastically told me she could help me find a job, but then she did nothing about that; (5) The lady moderator was using political type persuasion to get me to agree with her policies, which was coercion I resented; (6) I came to realize the site and forum were not what they seemed. Remember that the general wisdom was that Ray Kurzweil never participated or even looked at the forum, so I suspect his name was being used to promote the site that in reality had nothing to do with him directly. Now that I've learned a lot more about politics I believe something even more sinister was going on, and I'm glad I left before becoming a part of it; (7) It was all talk, no action, especially with codesimian, who was supposed to collaborate with me on a Java program to model dreaming in an AI architecture, but then dropped all contact with me with no explanation. Then there was the guy who never launched the Extropia site he promised, the endless talk of collaboration for financial purposes, especially for a state-of-the-art online dating service. I may be poor, but I'm a man of action, and this endless inaction from everyone was intolerable to me, especially since I'd hoped to find a professional job during the recession with help from my contacts there.Nice to hear from you all. I haven't perused this forum yet; I joined tonight only to let folks know what happened to me and what I thought of that forum at the end. To me it's good riddance, though there were some excellent references to technical material I wish I'd saved. Maybe I will find a new home here, but be forewarned that I've become much more politically aware, so as a result any posts I may make will likely contain very heavily political slant, although above the level of any specific party issues.
I remember all of those problems with the Kurzweilai.net forum well. "Amara" was the name of the "lady moderator" you describe, and yes, she was indeed guilty of the incompetence and poor judgement you mention.
During a particularly intense period of acrimony on the forum, a few concerned users and I got together and made a concerted effort to petition the forum's leadership (possibly Ray Kurzweil himself) to get rid of the handful of people who were harassing everyone else, and Amara defensively revealed that none of the problems were her fault since she wasn't actually the site's "moderator." She had some other title and role, like "content manager" or something vague like that, and the actual moderator (e.g. - the person with the ability to suspend and ban forum users and to lock and delete threads) was an unnamed person we could only contact via XYZ@kurzweilai.net email. That revealed a lot about the fundamental dysfunction on the forum: the person everyone thought was the moderator and to whom all the complaints were directed was not actually the moderator, and even though she was aware for years that users were mistaken in their belief about what she did, Amara didn't correct the misunderstanding until things hit rock bottom and a group of angry users confronted her about why she wasn't doing anything to help.
It was also clear that Amara and the moderator didn't communicate with each other enough, and she didn't seem to be aware of just how many complaints some of the worst users had against them.
Anyway, futuretimeline.net is a much better-run forum (though, to be honest, that isn't much of a compliment since it just means basic moderation gets done here). I recommend you stick to writing about futurism, technology and science and avoid any unrelated political talk. Good to have you. Start posting content!
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