John, ya sounded just like a subgenius.
[samurai]
I am honored by your responses.
[sub](And excited by Jess’.)[/sub]
[/samurai]
Tank, good crew. I won’t ask to be on it, but I’m happy to reload clips and run Gatorade if the fire gets heavy.
Well said John. I justed wanted to underscore this sentiment with a recent example that really bothered me.
I recently invited a friend and fellow scientist to have a look at the board. Hopefully no one finds it too presumptuous for a relative newbie to extend such an invitation, but as I expected, she was impressed with many of the great debates etc. and I know she’d make an excellent participant… but she also found something that bothered her enough that she felt she should question me on it. [note it was a question not a critique] Specifically, not only were some particularly ignorant comments being made [which can be expected], but they were not always soundly discredited. Obviously there are going to be ‘crazy people’ about, and they tend to use a louder voice in an effort to goad and garner attention, but that is not the issue. To everyone’s credit, I couldn’t find an example where nobody spoke out, but there are cases where it appears everyone was so bored with the person or the topic that they don’t give the offending statement a thorough debunking. I don’t want to confuse the issue by dragging those debates in here, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t provide one example.
Sure, some fun is poked at the post, the idea that it is a sock puppet is presented, one person actually agrees (at least in part), then the thread is closed. And the thread should have been closed, but not before someone took a few moments to discredit the reasoning behind it. IMO, John Corrado already said everything that needed to be said, and much better than I could have. I simply wanted to provide an illustration of how failing to fight ignorance could lead someone to question if we condone it.
Waverly, it’s just impossible to fully rebut every last restatement of a bad thesis. After awhile, it just becomes a matter of who tires out first. Sofa King summarized this sort of thread here:
Chances are, the poster not bound by logic has greater endurance than the rest of us. We’re also more likely to have lives and stuff.
Tell your friend there comes a time to just abandon the conversation, because you can’t really win an argument like that, no matter how long you stay with it.
[sub]And thanks, SK, for the great summary of a dysfunctional thread. Even if you didn’t come to my cookout, you lousy bum.[/sub]
Yeah, that was (allegedly) ol’ Mark Serlin. He’s sort of the standard bugbear around these parts. If you see someone mention Serlin, they’re most likely using it to mean “troll”.
Show your friend the Seethruart thread. Jeez, that thing was one acid-filled roller coaster on a one-way, runaway trip to hell. It was like a little kid, kicking and screaming, “I don’t wanna go to school!”
:eek:
Lord/Lady have mercy on their souls !
**
[/QUOTE]
Don’t get me wrong, I agree. You aren’t going to win an endurance match with the Seethrus of the world. But then again, that is a good example: he had to blatantly ignore questions and refuse to read posts in order to persist in his mania because people did debunk his theories. I am suggesting that crackpot theories be discredited in some way, as opposed to being ignored or dismissed out of hand. Taking your point into consideration, I will add that it need not be taken to the extreme, as you can’t normally outlast the ignorant or the insane.
[QUOTE]
*Enderw24’s sig *
evidently I rock
[QUOTE]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Ender’s sig is fuckin’ FUNNY!!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHA!!!
Can I join up? I served a tour in hostile territory over at the now defunct Chemtrail Connection forum. Jarbabyj can vouch for me.
Blackclaw: the general rule-of-thumb for suppressive fire is: “The More The Merrier!”. By all means.
Please limit your selection of firearm(s) to lighter calibers; we only have one volunteer as ammo carrier, and we don’t want to break the poor bastard’s back with monster shells (TurboDog may show up with this).
**
I want in too!
I was there when the Mr. Cranky forum was flooded with teenage trools on Christmas Break back in '97. They had to switch to a password site to keep them out.
Ah, gee. I’m not that nasty, regardless of what my favorite troll is spreading about me with his latest whispering campaign.
Oh wait, who I am trying to kid here. Let the Year of the Skulls begin! 
[hijack]Whee-heee! Another Glen Cook fan! I just got him to sign all my hard copy Glittering Stones books at WorldCon. [/hijack]
I’ve gotten numerous hoaxes and chain-type e-mails; lately I’ve had some luck in mailing snopes or liemails links to EVERYONE on the “FROM:”, “To:” and “CC:” lines. I don’t know if the originator is still sending stuff out, but at least they’re not sending them to ME.
Can you guys use a Baking Squad? I make killer chocolate chip and m&m cookies.
Yup, you got it. I loved all the books except “Soldiers Live”, which…well, was pretty damn strange and poor, IMO.
And it’s why there is an Administrator named Soulcatcher on my UnaBoard.
Ahh…The Black Company! Great, if occasionally uneven series. When I hit at least a hundred recruits, I shall shamelessly plagarise from Mr. Cook.
And I rather thought that Mr. Cook tried to cram a bit too much into Soldiers Live, but I was glad to see Croaker back behind the quill as Annalist. Neither Lady’s, Sleepy’s or Murgen’s style was quite to my liking.
But I’m glad to know that I’m among fellow Brothers (or in this case, Sisters).
Morgyn: fighting ignorance the easy way is still a daunting task (so many morons, so few bullets), and chocolate chip cookies (with M&Ms no less; :drool:)keep the troops happy and energetic.
Just hold off on the green ones until we have male/female parity.
Damn, I got invited to join a hit squad, and I missed it? I suggest we use incendiary rounds, that way we can remove the heads and cauterize them, simultaneously, stopping the regeneration in its tracks.