In which the banned poster in question types a coherent sentence, with proper spelling and punctuation, referring to himself in the third person.
Then immediately underneath that sentence types a rebuttal more in keeping with the OP’s style, leading one to believe that two people are posting under the same username, and are apparently not in complete agreement over the point of the thread.
No, the first coherent sentence was written by Skammer. Captain Crazypants didn’t know how to quote, and instead cut-and-pasted it.
Bytegeist, are you actually upset over this guy’s banning? I was under the impression that keeping the crazies and spammers out was the mod prime directive.
Diabolical. A quote without quote tags, when he had already demonstrated his ability to use quote tags properly. In fact, he used the same quote, properly, in his previous post.
That’s no bot. That, my friends, was El Diablo himself.
Oh dear. I didn’t have any trouble understanding what he was saying.
I was going to tell him that he couldn’t copyright discussion topics, but that if he wanted to try to, he should write the question down, put it in a sealed envelope and mail it to himself. Then never open the envelope. The postmark would provide a little evidence that he came up with the question himself.
But after he sells it to one person, there is nothing to keep other people from discussing it.
Most people are not going to pay in advance to hear the question unless they are crazy with curiousity.
But even as an adult, I’ve been introduced to paradoxes that intrigue me. I suppose most of you are familiar with the reason that you can never cross a finish line. But whose paradox is that? I think I read about it first in Godel, Escher, Bach.
Sorry to hear that loonies aren’t welcome, BTW.
I agree that this banning was premature unless there was more to it than meets the eye.
First, they came for the incomprehensible, borderline illiterate, hostile, drunken racist skinhead trolls… and I said nothing, because I was not an incomprehensible, borderline illiterate, hostile, drunken racist skinhead troll.
Zoe, for a collection of interesting paradoxes (paradoxii?), let me recommend a short story by Eric Frank Russell entitled Diabologic from the short story collection Six Worlds Yonder. It was written in 1955 and uses the finish line paradox, but in his form it is why you can’t shoot a running man. There are lots more (which I’ve largely forgotten in the 20+ years since I last read it) and all of the stories in the collection are fun to read.
No, I’m certainly not upset about this. I just thought the sudden banning without a warning was unfair, assuming Swifty was sincere — however inarticulate, naive, loony, or intoxicated he might or might not have been. Those reasons don’t (or shouldn’t) count as “being a jerk”, the Board’s official dogma on the subject. If nothing else, such people are delightfully entertaining, without being all that offensive.
Spammers, trolls, and sock puppets on the other hand — sure, I have no objection to their banning. Some have just suggested Swifty might have been a sock, a possiblity I hadn’t considered when I posted. But if he was, as alleged, a skinhead from another board, stringing us along into some racist diatribe somewhere down the line, he sure picked a strange approach:
[ol]
[li]Baffle but entice board members about where one might “sell a question” — a new and profound question about the world, never thought of by anyone anywhere ever before, inspired the other day by watching some unspecified animal. It’s a question that must be answered, although unfortunately no one can answer it.[/li][li]???[/li][li]Racist diatribe.[/li]li[/li][/ol]
You’re thinking of Zeno’s “dichotomy” paradox. When used in moderation, it makes an excellent proof that you needn’t bother getting out of bed in the morning.
