Oh, well ...

When somebody starts talking about literal deicide and the need to kill anybody who imposes any sort of rule, the realization that one is in the (virtual) presence of a lunatic tends to come quickly.

That blocking you got from Lex Bertch was completely in character for him / her.

"but I can assure you that I haven't blocked anyone!"

Almost nobody. I know. I never thought that you had, and mentioned having confirmed that suspicion, yesterday.

bsky.app/profile/sigh...

^

It was a solid contender for the title of the most stupid discussion I've ever been in. Both of the crazies blocked me, and I blocked them back.

According to the other crazy, as a TA in a Math class, I had refused to see the brilliance of the idea that Mathematics was supposed to be more democratic, with the validity of various propositions in class being settled by haggling with the students, because I was too obsessed with Capitalism.

S/he didn't phrase it that way, but words to that effect. I have the whole bizarre pitch, in his / her own words, in the quotes in my replies to the ranting I was seeing.

Both were united in their belief that academics and other authorities needed to be destroyed.

"I don't understand what this is all about,"

Nothing worth spending a lot of time thinking about, in all likelihood. I ran into a pair of crazy people, one of whom announced his plan to kill God by making low quality art.

I swear that I'm not making that up.

"so they play up in class as they are used to attention seeking behaviours working."

I don't care. Dealing with that is not my job.

Disruptive students are ejected from the Math and Science classes I teach. This is not open to discussion.

"And also, parents too busy to give children the attention they require,"

Again, the student in question was an adult, and more than old enough to be responsible for his own behavior.

bsky.app/profile/sigh...

Matt, either stop tossing the word salad, right now, or I'm going to block you, myself.

In fact ... and I found this mildly amusing ... he was older than me. Not quite sure where you got the idea that education ends with childhood, while living in a society in which a little over half of the kids graduating from high school go on to college, but this is not the case.

"Capitalism isn't just how we do economics. It affects every aspect of life of every child in your classroom, not least overcrowded classrooms."

Uh, huh. The entitled student who gifted me the nickname by which I am known ("Microbitch") was in a Calculus class and over the age of 18.

... on the matter, but I am not going to meet him halfway. What is true is true, what is false is not, and if somebody's ideas of what our societal values are supposed to be are not served by the fact that I know the difference, so much the worse for those alleged values and his vision of the future

"That's perhaps a long conversation - but I believe there are strong arguments to support it,"

There really aren't, and I'm stating that as a fact, not as an opinion. If a student earns a failing grade on his assignment, experience tells me that fairly often, he'll want to have a dialog ...

A maximization of profit is not my objective. The pursuit of the truth is.

There is no compromise to be sought between these two goals.

As I teach my students, I am teaching them about Mathematics and Physics, and dealing in matters of objective truth. Whether I could or could not make more money for myself or my employers by validating nonsense or catering to some entitled student's desire for validation would be beside the point.

"Perhaps in a society ruled by human values and not the values of capital, that experience wouldn't arise?"

Sorry, Mr. Jee, but that made no sense. The last thing I'm concerning myself with, as I restore order in my classroom, are "the values of capital."

"Killing God,"

Literally killing God is obviously impossible. If He is imaginary, then there's nobody to kill. If He is real, then He is omniscent, invincible and invulnerable, and an enemy that would be completely beyond us.

Lex's position is a sanity test.

This Keith Frankish's bio:

"Philosopher, writer, Ελληνοβρετανός. Hon Professor, Sheffield University. Mind, consciousness, illusionism, cog-sci, Ελλάδα. "

Being a professor, he was an authority, and thus destined to be blocked by Lex, under Lex's own started terms.

Matthew. If my students start disrupting a class that I'm teaching, do I work out a compromise with them, or do I lay down the law?

When I said that I thought that Lex was the one who did the blocking, that wasn't a completely wild guess. Lex has issues.

Supposedly, shehe is going to kill God with the power of hisher art, and drive all of the Jews, Christians and Muslims off of the planet, which they supposedly killed.

"Because we want to rule 🙄

No rulers

Everyone who wants to make rules needs to go straight to hell this time

Authoritarian abuse killed my family and the planet, I'm never going to stop coming for God and every other authority with art"

I'm not surprised. That action was in character for Lex. This is the first Lexbleet I saw, and it is a telling one.

bsky.app/profile/bert...

I'll quote, for the record ...

Lex Bertch (@bertch313.bsky.social) they/them Assimilated-White Indigenous | #nonbinary | www/40+ | digi&analog #artist 🚫AI | Waawiyaatanong Detroit LANDBACK / AIM family 1sts, awards, can't care I cannot afford to feed my rescue c...

@bertch313.bsky.social is definitely the party who did the blocking.

ClearSky ClearSky - Bringing information closer to you

... a lot to go through. Lex blocks a lot of people, and I don't have time to go though all of that. But you could, if you want to.

Oh, correction: I do know. Going to Keith Frankish's block list

clearsky.app/keithfrankis...

I find one user on it, and Lex isn't that user.

ClearSky ClearSky - Bringing information closer to you

I'm just guessing. I don't really know who blocked who. If you go to relevant page on Bluesky,

clearsky.app/bertch313.bs...

and skimmed the list of people that Lex had blocked since Mr. Franklin's bleet was posted on April 19, I guess you could look for @keithfrankish.bsky.social, but there's ...

This is the reply I got

bsky.app/profile/bert...

which Bluesky is obscuring for some reason.

"Stay mad"

LOL. You know s/he will.

bsky.app/profile/sigh...

bsky.app/profile/bert...

I use that indeterminate pronoun for reasons that a visible to LB's reply page should make clear, fairly quickly. It's meant as an insult.

I just don't like the way in which Bluesky's nuclear block shreds the public record.

The above

bsky.app/profile/keit...

is a response to

bsky.app/profile/did:...

I was able to see the original context, because it is still visible on Lex B's reply page, as viewed from my account.

Lex - you're still insane. I'm not doing this to validate your intuitive scholarship.