Posted: Nov 05, 2018 8:32 am
It's been more than a week and no response from Rumraket, so I guess there isn't going to be one. Of course, no response is better than a response advocating the posts of GrahamH and Newolder, but not much.
Let's be quite clear about this, the equivocation in their replies is obvious. It's easy to imagine someone overlooking it if they're posting after a few glasses of wine, but once it's been pointed out, it should be obvious, and once it's been spelled out, what is one to think of people who still act as if it isn't there?
On the face of it, there are three possibilities. First, these two just are too stupid to understand the equivocation. Second, they're completely nuts and so out of touch with reality that they can't understand it. Third, they're lying, they understand the equivocation but are pretending to be too stupid to.
The third possibility is by far the most plausible. In fact, had such a facile equivocation been posted in defence of evolution denial, I'm sure these two would have got it as quickly as anyone else.
But the problem isn't that there are two members posting tripe, it's that nobody has pointed this out. It's that the culture of this site is one that encourages people to behave inconsistently, to tolerate that which they wouldn't ordinarily tolerate as long as it's posted by someone who chants the right slogans.
Such behaviour isn't acceptable on any intellectually respectable site. So, this site fails to meet the minimum level required for intellectual respectability. And I dare say this explains why almost all the interesting and well informed posters left the site four or five years ago. After all, who wants to post on a site on which attempts to discuss matters seriously are met by hysterical and unsupported accusations of "woo", irrelevant rambling waffle from Cito and the kind of crap above from GrahamH and Newolder? It's neither productive nor fun. And look at the result, after a few silly jokes about Dr.Who, the discussion has been successfully killed.
I suggest the site be renamed Irrational Dogmatism, and the mission statement rewritten to accurately reflect the ethos of the site.
Let's be quite clear about this, the equivocation in their replies is obvious. It's easy to imagine someone overlooking it if they're posting after a few glasses of wine, but once it's been pointed out, it should be obvious, and once it's been spelled out, what is one to think of people who still act as if it isn't there?
On the face of it, there are three possibilities. First, these two just are too stupid to understand the equivocation. Second, they're completely nuts and so out of touch with reality that they can't understand it. Third, they're lying, they understand the equivocation but are pretending to be too stupid to.
The third possibility is by far the most plausible. In fact, had such a facile equivocation been posted in defence of evolution denial, I'm sure these two would have got it as quickly as anyone else.
But the problem isn't that there are two members posting tripe, it's that nobody has pointed this out. It's that the culture of this site is one that encourages people to behave inconsistently, to tolerate that which they wouldn't ordinarily tolerate as long as it's posted by someone who chants the right slogans.
Such behaviour isn't acceptable on any intellectually respectable site. So, this site fails to meet the minimum level required for intellectual respectability. And I dare say this explains why almost all the interesting and well informed posters left the site four or five years ago. After all, who wants to post on a site on which attempts to discuss matters seriously are met by hysterical and unsupported accusations of "woo", irrelevant rambling waffle from Cito and the kind of crap above from GrahamH and Newolder? It's neither productive nor fun. And look at the result, after a few silly jokes about Dr.Who, the discussion has been successfully killed.
I suggest the site be renamed Irrational Dogmatism, and the mission statement rewritten to accurately reflect the ethos of the site.