The inquiry in the last paragraph was a serious one. Is there any “cite” that could be provided to defend the assertion that Dopers are particularly intelligent?
To encourage conversation, I offered some examples of places where serious conversation happens (sometimes), like Reddit, and some that I figured most Dopers would have a gut-level reaction against: ‘of course we’re smarter than ____’ with Breitbart and Stormfront offered for the lefties and DU and Tumbl offered for the righties.
Who are (were?) they? I’ve never heard of them.
[quote=“Procrustus, post:77, topic:775094”]
In all my years here, I have never heard anyone quote or refer to Thom Hartmann or Ed Schultz. I’m not saying it has never happened, but if it has, it’s a rare occurrence.
“Supernatural” is meaningless term in any serious philosophical discussion.
What’s the difference between believing that Zeus exists, or believing that Superman exists, other than that the former couldn’t exist even in theory, while the latter could in pure (though extremely unlikely) theory. Just a case of not understanding the difference between science fiction and reality, as opposed to fantasy and reality.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C Clarke
Back when Bush Jr. was Prez there was an attempt to create a Progressive Talk Radio network which, due to various financial fuckups, eventually folded. Thom Hartmann and Ed Schultz were big back then.
“Supernatural” is meaningless term in any serious philosophical discussion.
What’s the difference between believing that Zeus exists, or believing that Superman exists, other than that the former couldn’t exist even in theory, while the latter could in pure (though extremely unlikely) theory. Just a case of not understanding the difference between science fiction and reality, as opposed to fantasy and reality.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C Clarke
…
If someone believed the entire Young Earth Creation story, but just believed God was an “alien” and created talking snakes with “super advanced alien technology” instead of literal “magic”, then how would it be any less ridiculous?
It would just be like believing Star Wars happened in real life instead of Lord of the Rings.
Are either of those H’s silent?
I met a Garry the other day. Fuck that nonsense.
That would depend on your descriptions of both the aliens and the particular “god” you believe in, I suppose. An alien with advanced technologies that had a hand in designing this world is much more likely than an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing eternal deity that supposedly created the entire universe, for instance.
Even if it’s more likely that’s still not saying a lot.
It’d be like someone who believes Darth Vader really exists thinking they’re smarter than someone who believes Gandalf really exists.
If in the previous example you can’t see the vast difference in probabilities between “alien” scenario and the “god” scenario, then I don’t know what to tell you. it isn’t a matter of thinking you are smarter-it’s a matter of recognizing levels of probability.
The whole OP strikes me as a somewhat poisoned well, though perhaps that’s just my interpretation. But the way I see it, the real question in the OP seems to be whether the SDMB is any better than the sites you listed, which as I previously pointed out, and so did Colibri, seemed like a serious question. Thus laying out, by default, a presumed equivalence between SDMB and all those dodgy second-rate fora, and then asking us to prove that it ain’t so. Which strikes me as the “when did you stop beating your wife?” type of argumentative trap.
The last paragraph is even more strawman-ish. You ask for cites and quantifications of something that is largely subjective until and unless we can agree on specific quantifiable criteria, and even then, why do you think such data would be available? You and I both know that there is no metric being maintained on the intellectual level of discussion or the grammatical correctness of postings. It boils down to the qualitative impressions that I talked about in #72 which I think are very obvious and very valid though not quantifiable. But then your last paragraph takes this impossible request for quantification and gently morphs it into “unproven” and “unprovable” and finally, like a rabbit being pulled out of a hat in a grand finale, suggests that maybe it’s all just “myth”. :rolleyes:
Tons of philosophical thought have been produced by religious thinkers all over the world.
I personally know exceptionally bright people who entered the University of Chicago after standing up for their religious beliefs in their admission letters/essays.
I think dogmatic people are more susceptible to lack intelligence, and there is a lot of dogmatism among atheists as well.
I don’t believe in any religious Superman but I think a conversation with an intelligent believer is more enriching than one with a dogmatic atheist.
I’m declaring hijack with this line of discussion. Take it to a new thread.
Aye aye sir.
I agree with this.
The Dunning–Kruger effect actually doesn’t show that most people think they’re smarter than average. It shows that people of below average intelligence over-estimate their intelligence/abilities, but people of above average intelligence also under-estimate theirs.
Here’s my take this;
Having spend time on forums like Reddit, City-Data, ‘socialanxietysupport’, ‘abovetopsecret’, I realized that this is a forum that is heavily discussion-based compared to the vast majority online. Most of the others are semi-social network forums (Avatars, images, chats).
The only thing here that makes or breaks your reputation here is your username and contributions towards discussions. It’s pretty here to get banned easily if your posts seem ‘trollish/juvenile’ but that’s positive IMO. It’s what weeds out people who only prefer low-level, small talk.
Now obviously, there are some taboo discussions that engage the irrational ‘reptilian brain’ in even the most respected posters but compared to other users on say Reddit, dopers seem to be more willing to observe things from different perspectives.
Goobers.
The only general purpose site like this that I am aware of is www.quora.com yet it isn’t the same thing. Quora takes votes for the top thorough answers to any particular question and highlights those. The SDMB is more discussion based and has a more back and forth approach.
I personally don’t find the self-depreciation of some of the responses in this thread or previous ones just like it endearing. It is one of the smartest and most long-lasting sites of its type on the internet even if it is a little liberal for my tastes. We existed before Google was really a thing let alone Facebook or thousands of other wannabe sites yet we are still here because there are questions that cannot be answered anywhere else. We have countless Jeopardy champions, literal rocket scientists, academics, doctors, lawyers as well as sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies and dickheads.
You simply aren’t going to find that quality of mix in Yahoo answers or a Youtube comments section (well, maybe some of the latter). I am a citizen of the web and have been since 1994. This is the only site that I pay for and will continue to do so as long as it exists. There really is nothing else like it. It has been around for about 18 years which is roughly the equivalent of 3 million in tech terms, it operates mostly the same as it always has, yet it still keeps chugging along with many of the same people plus some new people constantly straggling in.
Google loves the SDMB and our responses tend to be top ranked on many topics. I am always a little embarrassed when I look up something and think the answer returned is brilliant only to realize that I wrote it myself a decade ago. The same thing happens when someone from outside the board shows me a cite for something interesting and I not only know the person that wrote it, but their entire life history by memory.
Raisinetts
I’ve never seen that term before, but I assume it’s an inverse of the standard bell curve. Am I close? Any idea when the term was coined?