Well said Eric.

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Being from north of the border I just don't get why people associate Berkeley politics to an organization that is run out of, but independent of the university. Yes universities, Berkeley in particular, are hotbeds of political extremism. I remember the riots of the 60's as well as the shootings at Kent but how does any of that affect SETI science? Maybe the university is no longer following the wishes of the founders of the Free Speech Movement or maybe it is just some peoples misunderstanding of events but that shouldn't have any effect on SETI@home or peoples desire to help explorer the universe. I've ben crunching data for SETI since mid 1999 and a little bit of 'weirdness' at Berkeley won't deter me from continuing nor should it deter anyone else.

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Yes universities, Berkeley in particular, are hotbeds of political extremism. I remember the riots of the 60's as well as the shootings at Kent but how does any of that affect SETI science?

Because a lot of people aren't really very bright. Facts have no effect on their beliefs, if they don't support those beliefs.

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Grant
Darwin NT

There are some that are here just for the opportunity to state their particular mantra on an internationally read bulletin board, and in anonymity. It has been suggested in the past that there should be a much higher minimum level of RAC to post, to weed those types out.

Isn't that a mantra in itself?

Not everyone wants to waste funds on gpu crunching & are happy to continue with cpu crunching.

Apologies from the people too silly to know that they should.

Keep up the good work. As long as SETI@Home is a thing, I'll always contribute.

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This is what we get when we have a spoiled baby generation.
I am Canadian from Romanian descent and i cant believe the Marxist ideas found their way on American campuses.
I lived trough once the communism and know the horrors of that flawed ideology before i emigrated to Canada.
Its sad to say but i do not think this is fixable. In my opinion , American society has reached its apex a while ago and now its down spiraling out of control.

WOW!!! I couldn't read but a couple before I started getting a headache.

From the ones I read, it appears you all posting are missing the original issue, which is typical when a discussion is turned "Political"

The ORIGINAL issue was the fact that due to this project being associated with UC Berkeley and all of the issues they have been having lately, he was getting nasty, UNCALLED for comments, on these forums, Twitter and Facebook. THAT is the underlying issue. As the Moderator, it is his job to remind people of the Forum Rules and if you do not want to adhere to those rules, they will be enforced. Since it's his job to remain objective on the forums, it is not mine:

EITHER STFU AND PLACE BLAME WERE BLAME IS DUE OR GTFO. It's just that simple. MOST of us are adults. You are welcome to voice YOUR opinion as long as you not attacking another member of the Forums. BUT that opinion needs to be in keeping with the Forum Rules which includes posting in the correct forum heading. We all have different backgrounds, education, experiences, etc . . . and SETI brings those together to create a program like none other on the Planet. What makes it great is because we unite for a Common Goal: SETI

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I reject your reality and substitute my own

boincstats.com

I support Eric Korpla's post , all the staff of SETI@home and all of the volunteers,
it's amassing what they have accomplished with such little money and resources,
SETI@home is the scientific experiment that most excites the imagination of people worldwide,

I just want to help find ETI.

Best Wishes to you all,
--- Byron.

Well said Byron, a plus 1 from me as well..

I agree completely with this comment, but the first sentence is crying for an "Oxford comma" after "Berkeley." Is it saying that the white supremacists "aren't associated with Berkeley or the anarchists," or that the white supremacists "aren't associated with Berkeley," and that the anarchists also "aren't associated with Berkeley." I think the latter, but without the comma, the meaning is unclear.

But yes, I agree that the only valid response to hate speech is more "love and truth" speech. Suppressing hate speech martyrizes the haters.

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+1 Grant

You said that isn't your poem, but wow does it sure relate to what we're doing here. I've seen a bit of Monty Python but never did I see that poem. I truly love it.

. . Watch "The Meaning of Life" ... That is from where that verse comes.

:)

Some lessons in Old English needed by the author methinks, but I agree this NOT the place to bellyache!

. . Very true. The worst part of his attempt to keep it light was his poor command of old English :)

Stephen

LOL

No. It does not 'obviously' alienate 'every' white person. I am, and I am not, cause those whack jobs don't represent anything about me, so I have no problem with them being called out for being the waste of oxygen that they are. Nor do I have a problem with the anarchistic types being called out for equally being wastes of oxygen, if for different reasons. Hell. They should be, regularly, and loudly.

Sleel

+1

I think its outlandish to associate SETI@home with any of the political unrest at berkley. . . however, as a white man and someone who is conservative on some issues , I find Eric's white supremacist comment suggestive and offensive. It sounds rather like taking sides .

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Here is an article on Nathan Damigo on the Daily Caller, a well known strongly conservative-leaning news site founded by Tucker Carlson. Nathan Damigo's claim to fame is punching a female counter-protestor in the face on the Berkeley campus. It calls Nathan Damigo a white supremacist both in the article and the title. So does every other news article on him I have seen, but I link this one as an example that even right-wing sites use the term.

So, clearly, at least some of the protestors at Berkeley can be identified as such without ambiguity or at least contradiction of what is generally accepted.

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It sounds like there's still going to be a riot in Berkeley tomorrow because apposing groups of white supremacists and a group of left wing anarchists are ignoring commandments 2, 3, and 4.

How about next time leaving out the politically charged descriptors and there will be little said.

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...

I agree completely with this comment, but the first sentence is crying for an "Oxford comma" after "Berkeley." Is it saying that the white supremacists "aren't associated with Berkeley or the anarchists," or that the white supremacists "aren't associated with Berkeley," and that the anarchists also "aren't associated with Berkeley." I think the latter, but without the comma, the meaning is unclear.

But yes, I agree that the only valid response to hate speech is more "love and truth" speech. Suppressing hate speech martyrizes the haters.

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

When words are illegal, the time for words is over.

Where they went after Berkeley ...
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/05/10/battle-new-orleans-wasn’t

Last weekend, a motley crew of far-right groups assembled at New Orleans’ Lee Circle to protest the city’s removal of Confederate monuments. Bearing all manner of insignias, from the Confederate Battle Flag, Klan logos, Civil War kepis, Norse runes, the flag of “Kekistan,” the Gadsden flag, to U.S. flags, all were prepared for a brawl.

The highly touted “Battle of New Orleans” was by all accounts a disappointment. The flaggers’ desire to pre-emptively name a “battle” where one would not occur, and to nevertheless claim victory is evidence of a strategy at play by the far-right that emerged after “The Battle of Berkeley” last month. That same strategy is now in play with many along the racist right, including one of Sunday’s event attendees, Brad Griffin, who writes under the pen name Hunter Wallace.
...
In New Orleans, Griffin saw an opportunity to promote his project by emulating another Spencer disciple and rising star among the alt-right, Nathan Damigo. Damigo is an ex-con who punched an unarmed woman before fleeing into a crowd at protests last month retroactively dubbed “The Battle of Berkeley.” In the aftermath and through a series of tightly edited videos and dubious photoshop jobs, Damigo and others on the “alt-right” asserted that Damigo was instead performing honorably as a trained marine veteran by identifying the 95-pound woman as a “threat” and “neutralizing” her.

Griffin, recognizing that such a spectacle would have to be facilitated by recruiting and organizing far-right groups to instigate pitched “battles,” recanted his earlier stance on “LARPing”:

“I used to be highly critical of militias and militancy in the movement. Now, I firmly believe that a Southern Defense Force [SDF] is justified.”
...
Griffin, for his part, heavily promoted the “Battle of New Orleans” well in advance. Never once did Griffin acknowledge that, Johnny Horton ballads aside, the clear distinction between what happened in Berkeley and what he wanted to happen in New Orleans was that Berkely was named a “battle” after brawls broke out between Donald Trump supporters and Antifas.
...
There were no identifiable members of Antifa present in the crowd of hundreds who marched from Congo Square to meet the Lee Circle flaggers. Instead hundreds of residents of the City of New Orleans marched to celebrate what they saw as a victory against symbols of oppression. Met with spitting and racial slurs, none of the anti-monument demonstrators attacked the flag-wavers, though as Hill acknowledged in an after-action report, “they outnumbered us 25 to 1.”

The marcher’s desire to “destroy southerners” was on full display when a barricade, toppled by the massive swaying crowd, allowed throngs to pour through. Hundreds poured straight past the barricade blocking the flaggers and up the hill surrounding the monument where they chanted “This is what democracy looks like!” and “No racists, no KKK, no fascist USA!”

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I am sad that their are so many immature people causing you Grief.
Thank you for doing what you do. G