Oxygenating the flame in threads was Re: [extropy-chat] afuturist prediction

[Brett Paatsch]

Bret Kulakovich wrote:
 
> Hm. I appreciate your intentions here. And I do understand the  
> mechanics. Been around for a while, etc. etc.

I get that and I'm not really meaning to give *you* personally a
hard time, I'm just using you as an example, because to do so
fits nicely with the colloquial way of speaking, using the word,
you. Or, perhaps I'm verbalising my internal dialogue. 

> What I was doing, imho, was exactly what you are saying. I was  
> whining. Profusely. Except for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, because  
> that was serious.

;-)

> But censorship? None. I don't even have a killfile myself because 
> I view it as intellectual cowardice. Yes, that is also imho. Take the
> good with the bad.

The danger of censorship isn't, in my opinion, what you seem to think
it is.  It isn't that some nitwit might poison the minds of the young that
you or I feel duty bound to protect. The young have minds adequate,
for the most part of being able to distinguish or make their own
judgements as to what is noise and what is message. 

The problem with censorship is that the censors rarely have the acumen
or the time to judge the content of the messages they'd have to censor.

If Protagorus is having it out with Socrates I don't want Homer Simpson
coming along and putting his foot down.  We can't always tell who is 
Protagorus, Socrates or Homer Simpson, unless we are paying very 
very close attention, and frankly, who is?  

> But, but - but: The 'a futurist prediction' thread had the 'Bush is a  
> (biological process, product, and/or verb)' meme inserted, and, well  
> I wasn't up for another run through the long dirt remnants of that  
> particular horse.

See there you go, the equestrian and scatological aspects had escaped
me completely ! 
 
> Could I have ignored it? Perhaps. I did the first eight times. Months  
> ago.
> 
> Fan the flames? Doubt it. I could produce more flames pointing out  
> that there are more similarities between [snip] and [snip] than there  
> are differences, and that I think we'd all enjoy a beer together, if  
> it weren't for the taxation and the price of oiiiillllllll. /segue,  
> duck under chair, etc.
> 
> Anyway. I'll go back to watching threads go by then. Haven't seen  
> shunning work since the BBS days though.

I reckon some of the old village paradigms that ceased to apply to
city living may be able to come back and be useful for us again, of
course with some slight modifications. 

Shunning is just one tool in the box. Another is keeping a *personal*
database, or spreadsheet (same thing if you can use it well enough),
of posters who post under their userids. 

Reward merit with merit, track interests, help those that help you
or whose values you like.
 
> Thanks for the chat.

Thank *you*.

I was talking with Bret Kulakovich in mind as my potential reader
but with the idea the others might be reading too. This is, imo, a 
smallish tribute to you rather than using you. I only have a certain
amount of time. But if you *feel* used, sorry.

No reply expected, or necessary.

Brett Paatsch