Minichan

tl;dr this thread

Glug. No it's not. You've been reading too much output from the Robert Amsterdam propaganda mill. Robert Amsterdam is a paid political lobbyist who specializes in character assassination of politicians and movements opposed to his client. He likes to pitch himself as a "human rights activist" but he simply uses human rights as one tool in his portfolio for harassing his client's rivals. At the moment, Robert Amsterdam is being paid by Thaksin Shinawatra so everything he says and does is determined by the need to promote the interests of his client. Since both the client and the interests are very unsavory, this requires substantial prevarication and obfuscation.

Before going into what's been happening in Bangkok this year, some background is essential. Not just on Thaksin Shinawatra himself but also on Thai politics in general. Let's start with Thaksin. The man is a billionaire who made his pile getting sweetheart deal contracts from the Thai Government for work in modernizing Thai telecommunications infrastructure. He was also a Lieutenant Colonel in the Thai Police. When he first entered politics, his act was quite revolutionary. Normally a Thai political campaign consists of the candidate publishing lists of worthy people who support him. In effect, they provide lists of references that more or less state "I am a good person and can be trusted to work in your interests." People then voted for whoever paid them the most. In Thailand, it's quite possible to have a worthwhile debate on whether vote buying is wrong or not. Thaksin changed that. He conducted a western-style campaign that put a portfolio of promised policies out and invited people to judge his party on the basis of those policies. This was so different that it worked rather well. His Party became the largest in the Thai Parliament and he pushed through the items on his agenda (low cost medical care, low-interest loans for farmers and a few other things, all calculated to endear himself to the rural population – note still buying votes but wholesale rather than retail and using Government money to do it). When the next election came up, his party wasn't just the largest one, it actually had an overall majority.

This made Thaksin's real objectives critical. Thaksin is (or was) a great admirer of the Singaporean model of government and industry. He wanted to create a new Thai state in which there was a single party (controlled by him) and a single corporate entity (controlled by him). The fact that Singapore doesn't really work that way is neither here nor there. Thaksin wanted a state where there was no center of government or economic power that was outside his control. With a majority in Parliament, he set about achieving just that. Hold that thought.

Now, let's look at Thai politics. Thailand is an odd place; it's one of the few countries in the world where the political establishment openly says "we're politicians, don’t trust us." There is an ongoing presumption in the country that political shakeups should never be seen in terms of black and white. The message is to look with skepticism on political changes and to assume that all political movements are corrupt and tainted by greed and ambition. There is an assumption that all are backed by a hidden hand that is pushing a secret agenda. This is an intensely cynical view of course, and one that leaves no room to suppose that a protest is both genuine and sincere. It also presumes that idealistic people can be too easily-fooled (there is a Thai joke that the only difference between the words idealist and idiot is the way somebody says them), a belief that results in the fear that legions of gullible farmers might be turned on the capital by calculating politicians. The only defense against that eventuality, it is held, is that people must be constantly made aware that the motives of all political leaders are suspect. There is only one person in Thailand whose integrity is not questionable and that is the King (and by extension the institution of the Monarchy – and, by the way, that trust is earned, not demanded).

Back to Thaksin. In his second period as Prime Minister, he began his real agenda. There are checks and balances in Thailand; there are parts of the court system that are there to prevent political corruption (by which the Thais mean something a bit different from everybody else). There are parts of the government that are designed to stop things happening too fast or in ways that are disallowed by the constitution. Above all, there is the Army.

More background. If a Thai officer is asked to define the role of the Thai armed forces in general, and the Royal Thai Army in particular, the reply is likely to be some variant of "a political instrument aimed at maintaining the internal and external security of the kingdom." The emphasis on political considerations inside the Thai armed forces rings strangely and uncomfortably on British and American ears, which are used to the concept of an apolitical military. Yet our hypothetical Thai officer may well reply to such concerns by pointing out that war is an extension of politics by any means and that war fought without regard to political objectives is just mindless butchery. One of the awkward questions always asked about democracy is the possibility that 51 percent of the population may vote to exterminate the other 49 percent – and what should be done about that extremity? Some countries answer the question by denying its possibility; in the U.S., the Supreme Court would not, in theory at least, uphold such a position. Returning to our hypothetical Thai officer, the answer would be that it was the duty of the Army to protect all the citizens of the country, not just those who agreed with the government. After all, as the argument goes, the Army belongs to the country and the people. It is the people who pay for the Army with their taxes, and through conscription, it is they who provide its personnel. Therefore, the Army has the obligation to act for all the people, not the political party that has the majority in the government. There is a saying in Thailand "If you are in trouble, seek the man on the white horse." The "man on the white horse" is an army officer. It's a piece of good advice, if you are in serious trouble in Thailand, go to the Army, not the police for help. That principle is actually written into Thai law; if you lose your elephant, tell an Army officer and he is obliged to lend you some of his men to help you find it.

Thaksin started to undermine all of the safeguards that were built into the Thai constitution. He had two primary tools to do this. One was pushing his supporters into the organizations that were supposed to prevent corruption and abuse of power. The other was to silence the opposition with libel writs. He actually said "Censorship? There is no need for censorship. If somebody opposes me my lawyers accuse him of libel and sue him for a hundred million baht. Now, everybody censors themselves." He also started to take on the Army and the Monarchy. That's when he made a major mistake.

There had been rumors for years that Thaksin wanted the abolition of the Monarchy and during the 2004-2006 period, that became quite obvious. He disrespected the King on several occasions. Critically, when the 2006 military promotions and reshuffle list was made up, he took the list approved by the King and rewrote it to put his own supporters and family members in pretty much all of the key positions. That was a direct challenge to the King (not to mention a calculated insult to both the King and the Army) and it cost him everything. The Army decided to move and in September 2006, Thaksin was removed by a military coup. Once he had lost his power to issue libel suits at will, a mass of dirt started coming out. Basically the problem was that he couldn't distinguish between his own private financial dealings and those of the state (under his doctrine of course there was no such difference). He had been using his position to massively enrich his family and himself. With the courts purged of his supporters who had blocked any previous investigations, he was accused of corruption on a massive scale – we're talking billions. When his wife was found guilt of buying government assets at far below market price and then reselling them, he jumped bail and ran for it. He's been in exile ever since.

OK, that's all background. Now, on to the riots in Bangkok. They actually started in Songkhran, 2009. Thaksin's supporters tried a coup. Thaksin's strategy appears to have been to use urban-style terrorism around key points in Bangkok so that Abhisit would be forced to declare a state of emergency. Then the military would be brought in to quash the UDD protesters. Thaksin and his advisors expected this would cause bloodshed and the situation would spiral out of control, creating a state of anarchy. Finally, the strategy went, Thaksin's supporters would petition His Majesty the King for a royal intervention to end the crisis.

Thaksin was probably inspired to try this approach by memories of Black May in 1992 where heavy-handed action by paramilitary personnel had indeed resulted in excessive violence and the eventual fall of the government. However, what Thaksin either forgot or (more likely) did not know was that the situation was very different than it had been in 1992. His assault resulted in 36 hours of fighting between Army troops, demonstrators and local residents that left two dead and 113 wounded. By the time the skirmishes had ended, the demonstrators were being driven back to a small area around Government house where about 2,000 members of the pro-Thaksin groups had retreated. The troops had been sent in under strict control and without heavy weapons. Most importantly, this time the civil population was wholeheartedly in support of the troops. A combination of firm but restrained action of the security forces and public repugnance for the level of violence used by the UDD won the day. Indeed, when UDD supporters threatened to set fire to an LPG truck in order to attack advancing troops, local residents formed a human shield to protect the soldiers.

The consensus of opinion in Thailand is that the events of the Songkhran weekend eventually ended as a victory for Prime Minister Abhisit's government, albeit by a desperately close margin. Thaksin's personal profile never recovered from the debacle, and his standing as a viable political leader was more or less destroyed. Instead of being seen as a champion of "the people" against the Bangkok bureaucracy, he was perceived as a self-seeking power-hungry megalomaniac for whom those he had pretended to support were just pawns in his own pursuit of power and wealth.

Thaksin and his supporters went back and rethought their strategy. They learned from Songkhran 2009 and Thaksin's military advisor General Khattiya Sawasdipol created a special militia within the ranks of the Thaksinites, intended to prevent the Army from dispersing future riots. Cutting a long story short, the Thaksinites (now known as the red shirts) held a rally in Bangkok that started in mid-March 2010 and ended two months later. During that period, Khattiya's militia ended one attempt by the Army to disperse them, Khattiya was killed by a sniper (it is still not clear who killed him), the red shirts moved to the business center of Bangkok and eventually were dispersed by the Army.

So, who were the Red Shirts? Robert Amsterdam would have you believe they were poor but peaceful farmers who had come to the city to protest their poverty-stricken status. Actually no. They came to Bangkok because they were paid to come to Bangkok by Thaksin Shinawatra. Essentially, they were in it for the money, for the staggering BHT10 billion from offshore Thaksin accounts that were funding their demonstrations. The longer they demonstrated, the longer the influx of hard cash would continue. They also wanted an interim government that would pass a blanket amnesty to all the red shirt followers, including the black army gunmen who had opened fire on April 10. Since Thaksin had invested BHT10 billion, he would not accept anything less than a national government dominated by him. With the demonstrations achieving nothing more, they turned to widespread violence.

That was the turning point in the history of this confrontation. The result was an immediate and rapid collapse of the red shirts' public image, in Thailand if not in the international press. The latter, systematically misinformed by paid Thaksin lobbyists, largely backed the red shirts as a genuine movement of the poor against the Bangkok elite. The reds were looked upon by most Western media as champions of democracy against the military-installed Abhisit government. This comfortable, if entirely erroneous, worldview fell apart as red shirt thugs stormed a hospital, causing critically ill patients to be hurriedly evacuated. By this time, the general Thai public no longer bought the reds' propaganda that they stood for any sort of democracy. They cared only about getting their patron into power regardless of the damage done to the people or economic conditions of the country. With tourist cancellations and business layoffs mounting as a result of the standoff, most Thais just wanted the government to remove the reds from the streets of Bangkok as quickly as possible. The coup de grace was when the government froze the assets of the high-profile names who had been providing financial support to the reds. The list showed that these individuals were part of the traditional business and political elites. The whole red shirt movement had been exposed for what it was: never a genuine movement for "democracy" or "the rights of the poor" but a band of mercenary foot soldiers in the battle between two opposing Bangkok factions.

So, the statement that the riots were caused by income differences is quite wrong. The events between March and May 2010 were caused by a power struggle between two groups of Thai industrial-military-political complexes. One was the traditional power structure that saw power as being shared out between interested parties on a formula that included such things as popular support etc. The other was Thaksin supporters who wished to see all power concentrated into his hands and the opposition crushed completely. Once the Army had crushed the street demonstrators, they realized the game was up and they ran. Most are now in Cambodia, the balance are in Thai jails.

Thaksin ruthlessly used the argument that Northerners in Thailand were oppressed and deprived of their just rewards as a justification for his moves. This is where an interesting outlook on the protest leaders comes into play. They are not poor; they come from neat, well-kept homes and own new pickup trucks and other amenities. They are actually making the transition into the middle class but see their aspirations for political influence commensurate with their economic standing blocked by both power groups. Their objective, verbalized by Thaksin as a political tool, was to gain influence with the Bangkok-based elites, not to eliminate them. After all, with Bangkok and its surrounding province still representing some 80 percent of Thailand's GDP, complete replacement was not an option. It is this group that has realized that Thaksin is simply using them, and they wanted to come to a separate compromise that would not involve Thaksin at all. This was anathema to his most loyal supporters, including General Khattiya who may well have been shot by a red shirt moderate as a "message" to the Thai Army. There was no doubt that he was marked for death by the Army following his involvement in the death of a fellow Army officer, Colonel Romklao, on April 10. But it is beginning to look as if somebody else might have got him first. The general was hit in the right temple by a 7.62 x 51mm bullet that exited through the nape of his neck. Tracking the trajectory makes it look as if the bullet may have come from inside the red shirt compound. Also, Thai Army snipers are equipped with rifles that fire .338 Lapua Magnum rounds. If General Khattiya had been hit by one of those, he wouldn't have had a head left let alone live for four days. So there is some reason to believe that he was killed as a result of his sabotage of a compromise agreement.

There is a fascinating coda to this. a third party force is emerging (or rather re-emerging). A prominent Thai politician, Banharn Silpa-archa, whose political machine was devastated by the rise of Thaksin, has been working hard to rebuild his political party and following. He has a plethora of good things running in his favor: he has lots of money; he is among the second generation of leaders in Banharn's family with real power; he has the ability to always land in a government coalition; and he has no taint of being Thaksin-connected. In recent weeks, he has been assiduously approaching Peau Thai politicians, suggesting that, since a Thaksin-proxy party would not be allowed to win again, it was time for Peau Thai MPs to carefully consider their positions, leave Peau Thai, and join his nascent party. This actually picks up the position that much needs to be done for the North. Although Thaksin used that as propaganda, a lot of people heard and liked it. Now, another party has picked it up but is pursuing it through normal Thai channels.

It may well be that the re-emergence of Banharn Silpa-archa as a political power of note represents the way forward from the current situation. The recent violence in Bangkok is not unprecedented in Thailand; in fact, there is an outbreak of civil unrest about every 15 years or so. All that was unusual in the latest round was that it took place in the center of the city, not in the provinces or the outskirts of Bangkok. However, after such outbreaks, Thailand has a long history of quickly and aggressively integrating the disaffected parties back into the mainstream. Those who are prepared to abandon Thaksin and his campaign for rehabilitation will be absorbed into the political system and quite probably rise within it. A variety of criminal charges will be pursued against those who are not willing to distance themselves from Thaksin's political goals and the more radical aims of the Red Shirt movement. Some who are charged will agree to cooperate in return for assurances of immediate probation. All of this is the typical way the Thai political system envelops and pacifies potential troublemakers. Justice, punishment, and the truth of the matter will always take a back seat to the mantra of unity.

So, the final point. Why was Thaksin so desperate to get back into power in the early part of this year? Well, in August 2010, the next Thai Army reshuffle and promotions list was released. The key point about this reshuffle is that it has completely eliminated supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra from the military command structure. It was, of course, exactly this result that the prolonged demonstrations in Bangkok were intended to prevent. By bringing down the existing government, the leaders of the demonstration hoped to stop this reshuffle list and replace it with one that preserved and enhanced Thaksin's influence. It is notable that with the failure of that strategy and the release of this reshuffle list, at least 15 members of Thaksin's Puea Thai Party have resigned from that group and sought to join other political parties. This reshuffle list represents a major political defeat for Thaksin on a number of levels.

However, of greater interest are the clues given within the list as to how the Thai Army sees the future of Thailand over the next four or five years. To understand the messages within the reshuffle list, it is necessary to look at the internal political structure of the Thai Army. Essentially, there are two groups: the Burapha Payak that is drawn from the field commanders and frontline unit commanders of the Army; and the Wong Thewan, which comprises the commanders in Bangkok who are part of powerful political families. These two groupings are often described as being cliques, but this indicates a level of hostility that does not exist. In fact, while the two groups are archrivals, relations between them are usually amicable. Essentially (albeit simplistically), the Burapha Payak are soldier-generals while the Wong Thewan are politician-generals.

If the Army's outlook for the next few years is essentially peaceful with no major threats on the horizon, the Wong Thewan dominate the reshuffle list. They are the experts at manipulating the political system to ensure that the Army gets the budgets it needs and its political requirements are met. If, on the other hand, the security outlook is seen as troubled, with internal and/or external threats developing, then the Burapha Payak dominate the reshuffle. These are the generals who tend to win where they fight. This year, the almost complete dominance of the reshuffle list by the Burapha Payak is a clear indication that the Thai Army does anticipate significant trouble in the near future.

There is another implication as well. The Wong Thewan officers have been very active in past political movements and have, from time to time, been involved in military coups. In fact, the Wong Thewan have been the planning authority behind most Thai coups in the last half century. This is hardly surprising since they are the Army's politicians. However, with this reshuffle list in place, only one senior officer is Wong Thewan; all the rest are Burapha Payak. This is a clear and intentionally reassuring message that a coup is not considered a likely prospect for the near future.

Ketosis is the process by which the body breaks down fats or lipids into ketones, which the body can use for energy. Normally, the body uses glucose for energy, but if it's running low on glucose, or if fat is the only energy source available, it will burn ketones instead.

The ketogenic diet was first "discovered" back in the 1920s. Doctors noticed that when children with epilepsy were put on the ketogenic diet, they suffered less seizures. I'm not sure what the mechanism of this result is, but it must have something to do with the brain not misfiring when burning ketones for energy rather than glucose. As more drugs to suppress epileptic seizures became available, many doctors lost interest in the diet, but the diet started to see renewed interest in the 1990s. It is a tough diet to get on. It starts with a day of fasting to force the body to burn off all its glucose and deprive the liver of glycogen. By fasting for a day, you essentially put your body in starvation mode. Your body tries to fight this by sending signals that you are extremely hungry and slowing down your metabolism to conserve energy. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense, since the body only wants to burn it's fat deposits as a last resort, wants you to seek food, and wants to conserve as much energy as possible. From a weight loss perspective, however, this blows, because to force our bodies to lose weight goes against our very nature as mammals. I digress. The person is usually put on appetite suppressants, for the first week or so. After fasting, the person eats a diet where 100% of their calories come from fat for the first couple days. What this does is it basically forces the liver and the bodies metabolism to switch gears. The body goes into a state of ketosis where it's using fat as its main source of energy rather than carbs and proteins. After the first few days, fat content of the diet can be decreased so that 60-80% of calories come from fat, 20-35% of calories come from protein, and less than 10% of calories come from carbs. It's interesting to note that once the body is in a state of ketosis, it has a tendency to stay in ketosis, just like when it's in its normal glucose-burning mode, it has a tendency to want to stay in that glucose-burning mode. Just like the body tries to send you signals to warn you that you're starving before going into ketosis as a last resort, it doesn't want to leave ketosis until it's certain that you're no longer in a starvation environment. This seems to be way the body will stay in this fat-burning ketosis mode as long as a majority of your daily calories are coming from fat. So even though you're not really starving, as you're getting adequate nutrition, your body stays in this starvation mode since most of the calories it's getting are calories from fat. As long as you don't let your liver store up enough energy to switch back to glucose, you'll stay in this ketosis gear. Since fat has a higher calorie density than carbs or protein, you still have to eat much less and be careful about calorie intake, which is why many will use appetite suppressants while on this diet. There's also the issue of feeling tired and lethargic from the body trying to slow down your metabolism and your body getting used to burning ketones instead of glucose. You can easily blow through this using exercise to force your metabolism to stay up, and stimulants to motivate you and help you power through it. Exercise is also important, because if you're not burning off the ketones in your blood, it can cause ketoacidosis, which is normally only a problem in diabetics, but you want to exercise anyway to burn fat and keep your metabolism up. I find that the best stimulant is 5-hour energy. Adderall is also helpful, and acts as an appetite suppressant. Taking multivitamins is also a good idea to ensure that you get adequate nutrition while on the diet and this will improve your overall health and energy level. Drinking lots of water on this diet is also very important, because the metabolizing of ketones uses more water than the metabolizing of glucose, so you need more water. You'll also need to drink more water if you're exercising like you should be. If you get cramps after working out, it's often because you're dehydrated. I find that drinking ample amounts of water can be more effective than stretching at preventing cramps, and drinking lots of water also keep your metabolism up. You'll also experiencing what they call "brain fog" from the first few days to first few weeks of the diet. This is because the brain is not used to burning ketones for energy and it takes time to adjust. The adderall and 5-hour energy helps with this as well. Once your brain has adjusted however, it actually prefers to use ketones for energy rather than glucose for energy. In fact, your brain will be 25% more efficient, and your heart and lungs will also be 25% more efficient. Eventually you'll find that you're less hungry, more energetic, more alert, more motivated, and sleeping better.

With all the weird rules and side-effects, some people argue that the diet doesn't seem healthy. I argue that it's a perfectly healthy diet, and the problem is the carb addiction we have in our society that causes most of the withdrawal-like symptoms. Once people adjust, they're much happier and healthier. Also, for millions of years before the dawn of agriculture, humans, as well as the non-human ancestors we descended from tens of millions of years ago, were naturally carnivores. There were some leaves and nuts in our diet, but for the most part, our diets consisted of fat and protein. The nuts we ate were high in fats, the leaves we ate were high in fiber and low in carbs, and berries and other fruits were a rare treat. This diet is actually closer the diet humans survived on for millions of years before agriculture gave us the starchy diet we have today. Most of the health problems we have today have been brought about as a result of agriculture and starchy foods. We didn't start getting cavities until we started eating starchy foods. Even non-diet related problems, such as pretty much every contagious disease we know today, came about as a result of humans living in much closer proximity because of agriculture. Despite the higher fat content of the diet, most of it is healthy fat that gets burned off before it can cause problems with obesity, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, etc. The low-fat dieting craze that swept the nation has actually led to higher level of obesity and worse health because people replaced the fat in their diets with more carbs, and eliminated all the good unsaturated fats from their diets which led to poorer overall health. I digress once again.

The most interesting thing about this diet is what it can do for body builders. Normally body builders use what they call the "bulk and cut" method of building muscle. This is when they go through a period of bulking up to build muscle, then a cutting period of losing fat, then back to both and so forth. Why can't they just build muscle and lose fat at the same time, you might ask? Well, the body needs protein to build muscle. In a "normal" state of metabolism, the body only burns fat as a last resort, and will start to convert protein into glucose for energy before it starts burning fat. It will even burn its own muscle for energy, which is why you can lose a lot of muscle mass from dieting. If someone is trying to lose fat and build muscle at the same time, they either burn off all their protein before it can be converted to muscle, or they eat lots of protein to compensate, but then they can't burn any fat because they can't burn fat without burning all their protein first. This is why they use "bulk and cut." On the ketogenic diet, however, your body is in a metabolic gear that doesn't work this way. When your body is constantly in ketosis, it's set to use ketones as its main source of energy. So when you're working out to burn fat, your body just continues to burn fat rather than burning through all your protein first. This means that your body can use the protein you give it to build muscle. As a result, on the ketogenic diet, you can build muscle and lose fat weight at the same time so that you've always got a lean and cut look, rather than a "built-fat" look. This eliminates the "bulk and cut" method completely. There are also variations of the ketogenic diet out there that I suggest looking into. Find the one that's right for you.

If you go to http://www.drawball.com/, you'll find that there are two drawballs: drawball 1 and drawball 2. Drawball 1 is the main drawball. You can look at it, but you can only draw on it if you submit original artwork proving that you have artistic ability and that you seriously want to draw on it, and not just vandalize it and scribble random shit. Drawball 1 is serious business. Drawball 2 is for the masses and it's not serious business. Anyone can draw on it, you can draw whatever you want, you can vandalize, you can erase, you can have your own work vandalized and erased, etc. Drawball 2 serves several purposes. It gives everyone who's not interested in drawball 1 something to play on, it attracts people to the site to begin with, and it also acts as a distraction for the vandals and trolls. Without drawball 2, a lot of people would probably spend a lot of time submitting serious artwork in an attempt to get approved just so they can fuck around with the drawball. Any damages done could probably be easily undone, and whoever did it would be permanently banned, but get enough people doing it and the admins start to fucking go insane and serious users are driven away in all the frustration. Sound familiar? Drawball 1 would basically be like AnonTalk if not for drawball 2. Since drawball 2 is there, most people just play around on there for the instant gratification, rather than going to through all the trouble to make their way into drawball 1. This allows the serious artists to get to work on drawball 1, and still gives people freedom to do whatever they want on drawball 2. Note that even though drawball 2 was originally made as a distraction for the trolls and "shit-drawers," there is still some decent work on drawball 2. It's not as high quality, but it's still interesting and fun nonetheless.

4chan and other chans do the same thing but on a much larger scale. They divide different parts of the board up by category, so you can go to different boards to talk about different subject matter. This site doesn't get nearly enough traffic to divide it up by subject, and it wouldn't be worthwhile enforcing either, but consider the 4chan boards /b/ and /r9k/ (before moot got rid of it). /b/ was the random board where pretty much anything goes. Rules that apply to the rest of the board don't always apply to /b/, and as a result you got a lot of complete shit, but the freedom on /b/ gave you some interesting content also. /r9k/ was similar to /b/ in the sense that you could post about just about anything, but /r9k/ was the more serious version of /b/. Only original content was allowed so that /r9k/ was never flooded with the same bullshit macro images, memes, shitposts, get in here threads, etc. Some people hated /r9k/ because they didn't like the serious business, and some people liked the freedom and quality of /r9k/ and couldn't stand /b/ because of the complete flood of shit. Both boards had good qualities. /b/ is kind of like drawball 2 in the sense that rules are intentionally relaxed there so that all the idiots, spammers, trolls, etc. flood to /b/, and as a result, other boards can function normally without having mods constantly banning, deleting, reading appeals, pissing off users, etc. It also makes it easier to bring down the banhammer on anyone who does post shit on other boards, because they don't have an excuse: they can take it to /b/, just leave the other boards alone. /b/ is the asshole of the internet.

So, even though we're a very small chan, we could consider applying this same concept. Divide the board into 2 parts, and have one part be like our "drawball 1" or "/r9k/" and have the other board be like our "drawball 2" or "/b/". This way it's pretty much win/win for everyone. Less people will complain about getting banned or having threads locked, or having content edited or whatever because they can just go to the more relaxed board and post whatever the fuck they want. Threads that don't belong on the more serious board could simply get shifted to the less serious board rather than being locked or deleted, and only the worst of the worst threads and posts would get locked/deleted on the less serious board. There would hardly be any more complaints about quality, or shitposting, or trolling, because if you want to keep it more high quality or serious you'd just post on the more serious board and abide by the rules. We could make everyone happy and attract way more people to the site this way. Posters like Ks would come back because they'd be more happy with the quality on the serious board and the serious board would be full of nothing but interesting threads, while posters who stayed away because they didn't like being censored (not that we censor that much) could have a field day on the less serious board. You could switch freely between the two depending on your mood. DM could be (somewhat) free to post his shtick on the less serious board, and anyone sick of it could just post on the serious board where it strictly wouldn't be allowed. I really don't see what could go wrong here. Obviously it might take a lot of coding and other bullshit that ultimately might not make it worth it, and that's understandable, but aside from that, this really sounds ideal.

In short, should we divide the board into two categories? What do you think would happen if we did?

I couldn't do it though. What I realized throughout the experience is how much people with names, and therefore, a reputation, are treated differently. It made me realize that people here respect me. You might laugh at that last statement, but the fact of the matter is, you might disagree with me, you might make fun of me, you might get frustrated with me, you might think my posts are "tl;dr," and you might not even like me at all, and I'm cool with that, but you do respect me, even if you don't realize it, and it's apparent in how you treat anonymous posters differently from the "namefags." The same goes true for pretty much everyone here who uses a name, depending on their reputation.

As Anonymous, people responded to me so much differently that it started to get on my nerves. When I'm "Broseph" I will compose myself in such a way that I interact with people the same way I might in real life, because there's the whole reputation thing. Since I was forcing myself to be anonymous, and I was getting kind of pissed off, I pretty much stopped caring and would just post whatever. This has its advantages, as the whole point of posting anonymously is to not have to worry about reputation and anger going from thread to thread. We've discussed this before. However, I find that it tends to go into a downward spiral. It upsets the normal social order that humans usually have when interacting with each other (which can also be a good thing), and the more blunt and disrespectful people are, the more bluntly and disrespectfully they are treated in return. We can go back and forth between posting under our names and posting anonymously, depending on what we want to post, but you're still replacing what could have been a more acceptable post, a post that could build your reputation, a post like might be interpreted differently because of your reputation, with a post that's diluted with the aforementioned attitudes. Even a poster you hate, like to4ster or DM, has your respect. If these people just constantly trolled anonymously, you'd never know it, but these people are always being discussed here because you love to hate them. You develop memes and cliches around them, and that's a sign of respect. No matter how much shtick an anonymous poster has, without a name, they're never the topic of discussion. You never read posts that are like "Yeah that one anonymous poster who always says so and so..." because they don't get your respect like posters with names do.

It's kind of like the social experiments where if you put someone in a suit or costume, they have a tendency to play the role that the outfit represents. People in suits tend to act more professional, people outfitted as guards or police officers tend to exercise more authority, and mascots who puts on suits tend to act very silly, etc.

This board is still what some call "semi-anonymous" though, because everyone knows who everyone is in each thread, and everyone knows who the namefags are, but no one really knows who the namefags really are. In a sense, everyone gets to create their own costume, put it on, and allow themselves to fall into the role they've given themselves. It's anonymous in the sense that you're wearing mask, but everyone can be identified by the anonymous role they take on (if you give yourself a name.) Take off the mask and you lose the persona. You're no longer role-playing. Nickalollyoff is a perfect example of this. He can be a complete shitposter here, but still be a serious mod on TinyChan, and a normal guy on Facebook. I don't like most of Nick's posts here, but I have to respect Nick for sticking to what he does. An anonymous habitual shitposter would be banned in a day, but people like Nick are allowed to stay because we respect the role he has taken on.

So, in short, namefagging has very little to do with being an attention whore who needs to feel special, and has a lot to do with taking on the persona that you can't necessarily take on in real life, and being treated in a way that one would expect that persona to be treated. I think that's what I've learned from my Anonymous April experience.

A wall of text is something that is frowned upon in most, actually virtually all Internet societies, including forums, chat boards, and Uncyclopedia. You should not make walls of text because it can get you banned anywhere unless it is a place that encourages walls of text. I highly doubt any place does support something so irritating and annoying, but anything can exist, but not really because unless you are in heaven then that can happen. But no one actually knows that was just a hypothesis, a lame one that is. Actually not really lame. You can create a wall of text supporting site, but you would be hated if you do that, so do not. But you can if you like, but I discourage that. Now on to the actual information of walls of texts. The wall of text was invented when the Internet was invented, but actually it was slow at that time. So whenever it became fast. But there would need to be some free or not free community for people, and that community would be able to have walls of text. But that community probably wouldn't have actually invented the wall of text. So basically, no one except God and Al Gore knows when or where or how the wall of text existed/was invented. Noobs probably invented, but probably not. Who knows. Walls of texts are usually filled with a lot of useless information and junk. Information and junk can be the same, but only if the information is junk or the junk is information. But who cares. The information/junk inside a wall of text are usually related to wherever the wall of text is located, but the best walls of text, which are actually the most irritating, most eye-bleeding ones, are completely random. Walls of text usually make the reader asplode or have their eyes bleed and fall out of their sockets. A number of people can stand it, but not read them. Actually some people can stand and read them. Those people do not have short attention spans. These are boring and patient people who have no life or have all the time in their hands, which are the same, but not really. The punishment of what making walls of text varies of the strictness of the community. But it doesn't really matter. Nobody cares. Walls of texts should be free of links, different font colors, strange characters, which are those other symbols used in society, and capital letters because it ruins the whole purpose of the infamy of walls of texts. It makes them look fucking dumb and weird. Walls of texts are obviously free of huge spaces and outstanding things like capital letters. Of course, paragraphs should never be in a wall of text. Walls of text are known to create nausea, confusion, head explosion, and others. The others being something I can not think of either because I am lazy or if I do not feel like it or I can not actually think of anything. Like what the fuck? That was a rhetorical question right there. What the fuck? You are actually not requesting a satisfactory answer, you just say that because you try to be funny or you feel like it or if you are pissed off. You must get a proper bitch-slapping to stop making walls of text, but if you are weird then that doesn't apply to you. Walls of text are defeated by deleting them or splitting them into paragraphs. Or some other things that would work but will take hours to think of. People are considered a nuisance if they create walls of text. This might be the end. If you hope this is the end, I am not sure. But if I was not sure then I wouldn't be talking. I should know. Or should I? The best way to make a better and good wall of text is to copy and paste what you previously typed or write. Hey, that reminds me. Walls of text aren't always on the internet! They could be anywhere that is able to produce symbols. D'oh. A wall of text is something that is frowned upon in most, actually virtually all Internet societies, including forums, chat boards, and Uncyclopedia. You should not make walls of text because it can get you banned anywhere unless it is a place that encourages walls of text. I highly doubt any place does support something so irritating and annoying, but anything can exist, but not really because unless you are in heaven then that can happen. But no one actually knows that was just a hypothesis, a lame one that is. Actually not really lame. You can created a wall of text supporting site, but you would be hated if you do that, so do not. But you can if you like, but I discourage that. Now on to the actual information of walls of texts. The wall of text was invented when the Internet was invented, but actually it was slow at that time. So whenever it became fast. But there would need to be some free or not free community for people, and that community would be able to have walls of text. But that community probably wouldn't have actually invented the wall of text. So basically, no one except God and Al Gore knows when or where or how the wall of text existed/was invented. Noobs probably invented, but probably not. Who knows. Walls of texts are usually filled with a lot of useless information and junk. Information and junk can be the same, but only if the information is junk or the junk is information. But who cares. The information/junk inside a wall of text are usually related to wherever the wall of text is located, but the best walls of text, which are actually the most irritating, most eye-bleeding ones, are completely random. Walls of text usually make the reader asplode or have their eyes bleed and fall out of their sockets. A number of people can stand it, but not read them. Actually some people can stand and read them. Those people do not have short attention spans. These are boring and patient people who have no life or have all the time in their hands, which are the same, but not really. The punishment of what making walls of text varies of the strictness of the community. But it doesn't really matter. Nobody cares. Walls of texts should be free of links, different font colors, strange characters, which are those other symbols used in society, and capital letters because it ruins the whole purpose of the infamy of walls of texts. It makes them look fucking dumb and weird and dumb. Walls of texts are obviously free of huge spaces and outstanding things like capital letters. Of course, paragraphs should never be in a wall of text. Walls of text are known to create nausea, confusion, head explosion, and others. The others being something I can not think of either because I am lazy or if I do not feel like it or I can not actually think of anything. Like what the fuck? That was a rhetorical question right there. What the fuck? You are actually not requesting a satisfactory answer, you just say that because you try to be funny or you feel like it or if you are pissed off. Now I just copied and pasted part of this huge wall of text, which is actually not. Wait what? Nice right? Ba boom a rhetorical question right there. Is this the end for the sanity of your eyes? What the fuck did you actually read up to here? Or did you skip to near the end and read this? Either way, you fail in life. Just kidding. Or was I? Oh well. Congratulations, or not, actually not. Get a life right now. I found a cheap life on eBay, but cheap lives are rare. Well, good luck in finding one. Not! Okay go kill yourself, but I wasn't meaning that. So go sit in the corner in your house. I do not care which, just stay there and rot. If you are not in a place with a corner, then lucky you. Find one if you can. There is no other option because I said so. Now if you pity yourself for reading this like most do, then do something productive and useful to the environment. My goodness. OK this is me here. I am starting a new section of this article. I didn't read anything in this article above here, but nevermind, because I have something important to say, and you really have to read this. So just skip everything above and just come to this part and start reading and agreeing. The wall of text was invented by engineers using typewriters. Everything was in typewriter font (because it was made on typewriters - remember when I explained that in the previous sentence?) and the point was to use all of the paper, because paper was very expensive back then, it had just been invented I think. So anyway, the point was, no margins at the top or bottom or sides. If you left a quarter inch on the sides of the paper, that was very bad. And the guiding principle was "This was hard to write, so it should be hard to read". Because they were software engineers, not writing engineers. Is there even such a thing a writing engineers? Probably. But anyway, please go back to the top of this article and read it over again. You'll get the point after you read it for approx. 10 to 15 times. OK have you done that now? Good. Now let's be honest - you're not reading down this far. Are you? Nobody would read down this far, unless they were a crazy person. Are you a crazy person? You might be. Now I'm afraid - it's just me alone with a crazy person. No one else has read down this far, just you, so it's just the two of us alone together here. Are you going to do something crazy? Maybe you will. Please don't hurt me. If you promise not to hurt me, I'll give a coupon good for a free Grand Slam Breakfast at Denny's. OK? Now just do this one thing for me, read the article over again, just one more time, and if you really truly don't agree with everything in it, then fine, I'll retire from my job with the railroad and we'll call the whole thing off and just go dancing, just the two of use, me (the writer) and you (a completely random crazy person who has actually read down this far), and boy won't we turn heads when we show up at Rockefeller Center with the entire Donner Party in tow! We'll dance all night to strains of the Lemon Pipers while the Italian 12th Armored Division prevents the Allies from thrusting into our rear! Ah, what memories we'll make, I'll never forget you, my completely insane random person. By the way this is magnificent example of wall of text. You have to be proud you read it all. Now please read article again, and this time pay attention.