Unvarnished Truth #1: Communism, Libertarianism, and Rational Anarchy.

[Doktor Howl]

Just relax, everybody. I was enjoying this thread and was interested in where it was going... until it turned into a pissing contest. WTF is wrong with every body? Just fucking RELAX! People put words in peoples mouth around here all the time, no big deal. Relax. BUT people coming around and pissing on everything doesn't help anything either (I'm seeing a trend with this lately).

SOO

OT: Before I make any comment about this, I'm going to wait and hear Dok out in part two. Though, the idea of a space outside of the system sounds like it would just generate another system, just with different monkeys. But..

Dimo-
What the hell do I know?

Too pissed off to continue.  Maybe some other time.

And it wasn't a space outside the system, but...aw, fuck it.  It's goddamn hopeless.

[Doktor Howl]

Okay, done being pissed.

Speaking in a much more calm frame of mind, I think it's impossible to present a new idea at PD anymore.

[East Coast Hustle]

I could have told you that. In fact, I think I DID tell you that, about a week ago, and then I spent 20+ pages of a thread getting slammed for being unsatisfied with the fact that PD has started down the path to EB&G-hood.

I'm just saying, if you're gonna bother trying anyway, there's no sense getting all bent halfway through and giving up.

Seriously though, once I get back to Maine and have gotten my first bloated summer paycheck, I'm gonna hit Syn up about taking over hosting of the "H" site and restarting it. Then we can bounce ideas back and forth without this sort of stupidity interjecting itself (for a few years, anyway...I think these sorts of things may have a finite lifespan) and invite people from PD if they are elitist enough for us and meet our lofty standards (IOW, they want to spend more time talking about what's going on in the world around them than they spend talking about themselves and the shit that's happening to them from a purely self-centered standpoint).

[Jasper]

Okay, done being pissed.

Speaking in a much more calm frame of mind, I think it's impossible to present a new idea at PD anymore.

Impossible, the majority of people here are hungry for new ideas, and would die (or worse) without them.  This is PD.  We rewrote and vastly improved the holy book of the craziest religion on earth with the BIP.  We indoctrinated Steven Colbert into the Illuminati.  People here are responsible for one of the shadowiest paramilitary organizations on the internet.

Basically, PD fucking rules.  Things like this are just the parts that don't kick ass.

[Doktor Howl]

I could have told you that. In fact, I think I DID tell you that, about a week ago, and then I spent 20+ pages of a thread getting slammed for being unsatisfied with the fact that PD has started down the path to EB&G-hood.

I'm just saying, if you're gonna bother trying anyway, there's no sense getting all bent halfway through and giving up.

Seriously though, once I get back to Maine and have gotten my first bloated summer paycheck, I'm gonna hit Syn up about taking over hosting of the "H" site and restarting it. Then we can bounce ideas back and forth without this sort of stupidity interjecting itself (for a few years, anyway...I think these sorts of things may have a finite lifespan) and invite people from PD if they are elitist enough for us and meet our lofty standards (IOW, they want to spend more time talking about what's going on in the world around them than they spend talking about themselves and the shit that's happening to them from a purely self-centered standpoint).

Thing is, ECH, it's not the users, it's the culture.  Ippie and Rat both knew what I was going to say before I said it, and had already stopped listening.  Then Dimo came along and did the same thing...in the same paragraph in which he said he wouldn't.

Everyone's fossilized.  It's like arguing with republicans or democrats.  There is a stock response to stimuli, and that response is hardwired.  Push button A, get response B.  All three named respondants had their responses firmly fixed, and were going to argue those points despite their lack of accuracy or even relevance.

Consider:

1.  I spoke of a problem inherent in all political systems, one being worse than the other.  I stated that I had an idea, which I was going to explain today.

2.  Rat, Ippie, and Dimo all made assumptions about what that solution would be, and then "poisoned the well", by stating what my position was sure to be (based on the fixed binary solutions they have learned over time).

3.  I got upset (like a Pavlovian dog).

4.  You came along and assigned blame to me (per SOP), and made a comment about "sacking up" which was bound to make everything smooth out (also per SOP).

5 people, 5 automatic responses.  There was never a conversation in this thread, just 5 white mice in Skinner's lab.

[LMNO]

To both support your theory and to question it at the same time, I will act true to form and rationally ask, once step 2 and 3 were reached, if there could have been another acceptable course of action.


LMNO
-I knew I was gonna do that, as usual.

[East Coast Hustle]

I could have told you that. In fact, I think I DID tell you that, about a week ago, and then I spent 20+ pages of a thread getting slammed for being unsatisfied with the fact that PD has started down the path to EB&G-hood.

I'm just saying, if you're gonna bother trying anyway, there's no sense getting all bent halfway through and giving up.

Seriously though, once I get back to Maine and have gotten my first bloated summer paycheck, I'm gonna hit Syn up about taking over hosting of the "H" site and restarting it. Then we can bounce ideas back and forth without this sort of stupidity interjecting itself (for a few years, anyway...I think these sorts of things may have a finite lifespan) and invite people from PD if they are elitist enough for us and meet our lofty standards (IOW, they want to spend more time talking about what's going on in the world around them than they spend talking about themselves and the shit that's happening to them from a purely self-centered standpoint).

Thing is, ECH, it's not the users, it's the culture.  Ippie and Rat both knew what I was going to say before I said it, and had already stopped listening.  Then Dimo came along and did the same thing...in the same paragraph in which he said he wouldn't.

Everyone's fossilized.  It's like arguing with republicans or democrats.  There is a stock response to stimuli, and that response is hardwired.  Push button A, get response B.  All three named respondants had their responses firmly fixed, and were going to argue those points despite their lack of accuracy or even relevance.

Consider:

1.  I spoke of a problem inherent in all political systems, one being worse than the other.  I stated that I had an idea, which I was going to explain today.

2.  Rat, Ippie, and Dimo all made assumptions about what that solution would be, and then "poisoned the well", by stating what my position was sure to be (based on the fixed binary solutions they have learned over time).

3.  I got upset (like a Pavlovian dog).

4.  You came along and assigned blame to me (per SOP), and made a comment about "sacking up" which was bound to make everything smooth out (also per SOP).

5 people, 5 automatic responses.  There was never a conversation in this thread, just 5 white mice in Skinner's lab.

fair enough, although I wasn't (at least in my own mind) assigning blame to anyone, just trying to give you a helpful head-check because I thought you were veering into territory that was only undercutting yourself. I know you have feelings too, but I tend to operate under the assumption that you, like me, respond better to someone telling you to "sack up and finish the job" than you do to someone trying to either coddle you or dismiss you entirely.

ETA: that said, where does the culture spring from, if not from the users? I honestly think that as this "tribe" gets larger, the only solution that doesn't involve apathy or drastic measures (neither of which are currently an option IMO) is to have two separate but closely related sites. That way, everyone can get whichever "fix" they need at a given point in time without half of the tribe constantly pissing and moaning about the other half.

[Jasper]

We need an exodus, or some kind of schism, is what you're hinting at.

Okay, how do we do it?

[East Coast Hustle]

Dunno, but I'm thinking about it pretty hard. I'm not going to act for the sake of acting (I might not act at all), so any proposed solution might take a while to brew.

[East Coast Hustle]

also, in spite of how thoroughly jacked this thread is, I'm really interested in hearing part 2 of Dok's essay.

[Richter]

2nd'ed.  I've heard enough hints abuout it.

[Jasper]

Me too, I hope it at least gets explained briefly soon.  

My balls, they are blue.

[The Wizard]

I'd also be very interested in the second installment. I thought we had a good discussion about it. That's why these things are fun to read. They start actual conversations, thought provoking conversations at that. Really hope you continue writing Dok. 

[Doktor Howl]

also, in spite of how thoroughly jacked this thread is, I'm really interested in hearing part 2 of Dok's essay.

Oh, I plan to, but not just yet.  Instead, I'm going to skip to part 3 and then come back to 2.  The reason I'm doing this is because the evidence suggests that people aren't able to listen, at least these days (wasn't true in October), because everyone's jammed filters over their eyes, and they can't read or listen to anything except through those filters.  And if nobody is going to listen, and I know that nobody is going to listen, then my head isn't going to be in that zone it needs to be in to write the essay.

So instead, I'm going to post #3, which deals - coincidentally enough - with filters and the refusal to deal with issues objectively.  Tonight or tomorrow.

[Tempest Virago]

Sounds cool, looking forward to reading it and part 2 when you get around to posting that.