[extropy-chat] Meta: Political topics, opinions and discussions

[Jef Allbright]

Seeing Samantha's post quoting my rather pointed but blunt comment, I
think a bit of clarification is due.

I personally support intelligent discussion on this list of all
topics, including politics, as long as each post is intended to
*contribute something of value* to the group.

On the other hand, I object to individuals abusing this commons by
using it primarily to pleasure themselves at cost to others, whether
by trolling to provoke responses on controversial topics, or
instigating or prolonging a discussion only as a platform to exhibit
their own inflated sense of superiority, or for general "bitching and
moaning", no matter how "intelligent" the poster may feel.

- Jef



On 12/19/05, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
> What contributes most to list discord imho is bright people who
> cannot seem to manage to discuss certain topics without going
> irrational and attacking speakers or the very act of speaking about
> some topics.  Folks, if we are going to have a chance in hell of
> pulling through this period in human history then we have to develop
> a bit more equanimity and maturity than this.   I am really disgusted
> by all the wringing of hands and slamming closed communication every
> time certain subjects come up.  It would be fine if we simply
> insisted those subjects are dealt with in a more quality way.  But
> that is not what we are doing.
>
> - samantha
>
> On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:00 AM, Jef Allbright wrote:
>
> > On 12/16/05, gts <gts_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Shucks, Harvey. I came back to this list after being away for 2-3
> >> years
> >> because I remember it to be a place where intelligent people can
> >> bitch and
> >> moan about just about anything. :)
> >
> > And it is this tendency toward mental masturbation that contributes to
> > the significant drop in signal to noise that we've seen.
> >
> > - Jef
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