I figured "In the beginning" was going to be closed soon. It was fun while it lasted.
I did find the characterisation of people who are against irrationality as having an "obsessive need to cleanse the world of every slightly irrational thought" rather weird, though. I guess when you can't justify your own position a typical approach is to attack the motivations of your opponent.
It's one thing to be against irrationality and another to engage in a 200 comment circular argument about a single point. That makes you look far more religious than me. :-)
I'm not interested in either justifying my position OR attacking anybody. I was responding to being called insane, dangerous, willfully ignorant, various other negative things.
I was being very general in my statements. Hyper rationality is probably REALLY important at CERN. At Starbucks, less so.
It's one thing to be against irrationality and another to engage in a 200 comment circular argument about a single point. That makes you look far more religious than me. :-)
What, I'm not allowed to enjoy discussing certain topics?
I figured "In the beginning" was going to be closed soon. It was fun while it lasted.
I did find the characterisation of people who are against irrationality as having an "obsessive need to cleanse the world of every slightly irrational thought" rather weird, though. I guess when you can't justify your own position a typical approach is to attack the motivations of your opponent.
We did get one thing out of it which was your great post about how people only revert to the philosophical arguments when all their actual arguments have run out.
5 + 3 = 8
No, 5+3 = 7!
Well here are five apples, 1,2,3,4,5. Here are three apples 1,2,3. I'll put them all together and count again, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.
I see 7!
Really?
You must be seeing an illusory apple!
Well let me toss a cloth over them, and feel around, yep there are 8 lumps in this cloth. count them yourself.
How can someone even know anything? We could all be in the Matrix! There are no apples!
It's one thing to be against irrationality and another to engage in a 200 comment circular argument about a single point. That makes you look far more religious than me. :-)
What, I'm not allowed to enjoy discussing certain topics?
Maybe you were enjoying it. I would argue that at least a few others were getting marginally upset by the whole thing.
Apreche, I know you're a mod, but closing a thread with a soapbox post in which you single out a particular poster is kinda tacky, no? I refrain from it on the boards I moderate, but it's your show.
And certainly, you can say that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It is. It's evidence of absence. What it's not is conclusive. Whether that's a scientifically useful argument or not is moot.
I'm not making any declarative statements about reality, as in your apple example. You're attributing a strawman argument to me and then rebutting the strawman, then you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and nonsense. :-)
It's one thing to be against irrationality and another to engage in a 200 comment circular argument about a single point. That makes you look far more religious than me. :-)
What, I'm not allowed to enjoy discussing certain topics?
Maybe you were enjoying it. I would argue that at least a few others were getting marginally upset by the whole thing.
Apreche, I know you're a mod, but closing a thread with a soapbox post in which you single out a particular poster is kinda tacky, no? I refrain from it on the boards I moderate, but it's your show.
And certainly, you can say that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It is. It's evidence of absence. What it's not is conclusive. Whether that's a scientifically useful argument or not is moot.
I'm not making any declarative statements about reality, as in your apple example. You're attributing a strawman argument to me and then rebutting the strawman, then you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and nonsense. :-)
There is a specific rule about this and only this argument. It has been had a thousand million times before on this forum. It is an argument people can not refrain from having. If we allow it to continue, the entire forum will be nothing but the same thread over and over again. If you want to have the argument, there are plenty of old threads you can read that cover the exact same material to the letter. I'm sure someone will be glad to link to some of them for you. We also have a philosophy of minimizing banning and closing as much as possible, but we could never talk about cartoon ponies if the entire front page was nothing but people who can't, and never will, understand the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I understand your argument and I don't claim that mine's rational. I totally get that this argument can go on forever and ever and has been done to death. I'm not trying to reduce the quality of the forum or anything like that, so, sorry for being an agitator even though it's not deliberate.
I understand your argument and I don't claim that mine's rational. I totally get that this argument can go on forever and ever and has been done to death. I'm not trying to reduce the quality of the forum or anything like that, so, sorry for being an agitator even though it's not deliberate.
You are less crazy than others who have tried before, some of who were actual true believers
Eh, Scott, it sounds like you didn't actually understand my points and positions and are falling back into your safety net there with that comment. Lackofcheese and I hashed it out more accurately at least. Claiming that I fell back on a nihilistic philosophy escape when I very clearly did not shows very poor form.
Eh, Scott, it sounds like you didn't actually understand my points and positions and are falling back into your safety net there with that comment. Lackofcheese and I hashed it out more accurately at least. Claiming that I fell back on a nihilistic philosophy escape when I very clearly did not shows very poor form.
If it was a forum felony, I wouldn't be around. (Or I'd be in FRC jail.)
I don't mind when it closes topics, but I think that should be the punishment. Only doing it more than twice is when you have to get someone to leave. The first time they probably don't know what they're getting into, the second time you give them the warning, and any more and it's clear they're trolling.
Also, frequency is important. If someone creates a religious discussion that gets banned once a year, is it that big a deal? But if they make them in immediate succession, it is obvious trolling/flamebait.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
I think I know what you mean and I've had it before. Try highlighting the text that hasn't rendered properly.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
I think I know what you mean and I've had it before. Try highlighting the text that hasn't rendered properly.
I'll try it. What happens is that posts seem to oddly overlap each other, especially blockquotes. The "bottom" post will be obscured by a second rendering of a comment from further up the page.
Anybody seeing odd rendering issues on this forum in Chrome 21? Happens on both Windows and OS X. Clicking the page buttons seems to fix it but refreshing the page does not.
I think I know what you mean and I've had it before. Try highlighting the text that hasn't rendered properly.
I'll try it. What happens is that posts seem to oddly overlap each other, especially blockquotes. The "bottom" post will be obscured by a second rendering of a comment from further up the page.
Yeah, that's what I had but I didn't really know how to describe it. I'll get a screenshot for Scrym next time it happens.
If anyone cares, I get that bug all the time (Chrome on Mac). If you scroll all the way down then up it fixes it. Seems like just one of those odd rendering things you can't really do anything about.
If anyone cares, I get that bug all the time (Chrome on Mac). If you scroll all the way down then up it fixes it. Seems like just one of those odd rendering things you can't really do anything about.
Comments
I did find the characterisation of people who are against irrationality as having an "obsessive need to cleanse the world of every slightly irrational thought" rather weird, though. I guess when you can't justify your own position a typical approach is to attack the motivations of your opponent.
I was being very general in my statements. Hyper rationality is probably REALLY important at CERN. At Starbucks, less so.
5 + 3 = 8
No, 5+3 = 7!
Well here are five apples, 1,2,3,4,5. Here are three apples 1,2,3. I'll put them all together and count again, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8.
I see 7!
Really?
You must be seeing an illusory apple!
Well let me toss a cloth over them, and feel around, yep there are 8 lumps in this cloth. count them yourself.
How can someone even know anything? We could all be in the Matrix! There are no apples!
Apreche, I know you're a mod, but closing a thread with a soapbox post in which you single out a particular poster is kinda tacky, no? I refrain from it on the boards I moderate, but it's your show.
And certainly, you can say that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. It is. It's evidence of absence. What it's not is conclusive. Whether that's a scientifically useful argument or not is moot.
I'm not making any declarative statements about reality, as in your apple example. You're attributing a strawman argument to me and then rebutting the strawman, then you accuse me of intellectual dishonesty and nonsense. :-)
I don't mind when it closes topics, but I think that should be the punishment. Only doing it more than twice is when you have to get someone to leave. The first time they probably don't know what they're getting into, the second time you give them the warning, and any more and it's clear they're trolling.
Also, frequency is important. If someone creates a religious discussion that gets banned once a year, is it that big a deal? But if they make them in immediate succession, it is obvious trolling/flamebait.
The big "NOPE" poster is a little much. :-)