As anyone scouring these forums can surely attest, we got us some smart people here.
Some are smarter than others. Some people here are well-read, well-spoke intelligent folks who back up their own statements with cites and other references. These are people with whom one might not always agree, but one can respect their logic, perseverence, and approach to issues both sensitive and insensitive. They might not know everything about everything, but they know a lot about at least one subject, whether it’s sports, physics, or this message board.
To these people, I raise a glass of your favorite beverage. Salud!
Let me take a moment to induct the following people into the unofficial SDMB Smart MoFo Club:
Please feel free to add your own or dispute mine. And remember, we’re celebrating these people not for their personality or popularity but for their wisdom, logic, shrewdness, and intelligence.
I put you on there for your obvious baseball knowledge, RickJay. Same with BobT. There’s having a passing interest in a sport, there’s being a fan, and then there’s being a devout fanatic that’ll research junk the rest of us aren’t obsessive enough to wanna care about. Plus, we’re lazy.
Groucho Marx was a really, really smart guy, and we all know what he said about belonging to clubs. (Although he was considered a member of the Algonquin Round Table).
I think Groucho’s point was about the disgustingness of cliques.
I nominate tamerlane. I don’t know if he knows all those historical dates off the top of his head, but even if he doesn’t, his posts are still pretty damn impressive.
I am Spartcus, I don’t necessarily think it’s such a bad thing to say, as the OP does, “To these people, I raise a glass of your favorite beverage. Salud!” Kind of a public appreciation for people whose wisdom is remarkable.
He’s already been mentioned, but I’d like to that in that vein, my goal in life is to be a sort of female, non-Catholic version of Tomndebb.
I’ll nominate Cecil Adams (I thought this was a no-brainer). I’d also put up Mangetout and zev_steinhardt. And I’d like to point out that lieu really knows his shit.
Most of the SDStaff that does mailbag answers comes to mind: Dex, bibliophage, Jill, et al.
I should also note that these would be the people whose posts you almost always learn something from. To that end, I gotta add zev and Polycarp, for sure.
Awshit, Bricker, Eve, QTM, and even Handy and Homer and Bosda - for shock value (great stuff, guys).
Special kudos to anth, who has already been mentioned.
It’s like the Oscars ™, too many names to remember. I love this place.
Jomo Mojo, who once answered someone’s question on language crossovers with a half-page-long barrage of pure genius, leaving a crater a mile wide and one hundred meters deep. The smoke resulting from this cooled world temperatures by point three degrees Celsius and affected a butterfly in Anchorage, indirectly causing a rainstorm somewhere in Beijing. It was duly impressive and I now worship the electronic ground he walks on for posting such a post.
Colibri, Tamerlane, gobear, tomndebb, David Simmons, Cervaise, CalMeachem, QtM, Libertarian, Polycarp, and MEBuckner are all “smart guy” heroes of mine. Just to name a very few.
Those whose posts I always try to read especially carefully include tomndebb, gobear, Libertarian, Cervaise, Darwin’s Finch, JSPrinceton, Cabbage and CalMeacham.
Thank you Horseflesh and dantheman. That’s very kind of you to say. I feel honored being mentioned in the same league as Cecil ( Wow, Cecil!), Mangetout and Polycarp.
I imagine there are plenty of folks who haunt Great Debates who should be named here, but as I don’t venture in there often (and even then not without plated armor, which makes it tough to move about and gesticulate), I’m not sure who’s been left out so far.
jjimm