I am reconsidering this forum's existence

[Colonel Sun]

Tinker,

I find it a bit difficult to understand how one person who posts mostly in one section of the board, Am Poli, would make you consider shuttering this board.

My situation is vaguely similar to that of cincinnatus in the sense of what I can freely express to fellow colleagues is rather limited.

So this board is in a certain sense a mental safety valve for me.

Even with the odd obsessive monothematic poster, incapable of self-reflection, this board has the highest interesting signal over background noise of any board that I have come across

due to a highly eclectic and delightful combinations of contributing posters for which I'm grateful.

These aspects of the board combined with a nearly no moderation policy is a significant achievement in itself.

Should you tire of hosting this board, for entirely valid and understandable reasons, I would be happy to volunteer to assume hosting duties with the aim of preserving what has been contributed to-date and providing continuity.

The importance of continuity in a very ephemeral medium . . .

[Tertulian]

Tinker,

Please don't shut this forum down. I think you have created something nice here, an interesting community and one that I would love to belong to. I'm learning a lot from reading some of the old familiar posters from the Spengler board and with a hat tip to Simple Mind, from FT.

Cheers,
Uche

[the glowing carp]

I enjoy coming to this board and value the work you do in running it and would miss it greatly if you closed it down.

re your frustrations of Political climate, I think it will get better, people will have seen the results of toying with extremism and move on, not all of course, but significant enough that those who remain will crawl back under their rock.

[Azrael]

[Azrael]

Tinker -- please don't shut down the forum. Don't let the bastards bully you in to quitting. Don't give them the satisfaction.

[Simple Minded]

[Simple Minded]

[noddy]

[Simple Minded]

Tinker,

Keep in mind, offense is always in the receiver, not the transmitter.

"Between stimulus and response, man has the ability to choose." Viktor Frankl

As I tell my co-workers, "Tell me what you think! Don't worry about my feelings! My sense of self-esteem is so low you can't hurt my feelings!"

don Juan via Calos Castaneda:

Self-importance is our greatest enemy; think about it. What weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellow men. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone. Without self-importance we are invulnerable. Self-importance can't be fought with niceties.

Self-importance is not only the sorcerers’ supreme energy but the nemesis of mankind.

Most of our energy goes into upholding our self-importance. This is most obvious in our endless worry about the presentation of self, about whether or not we are admired or liked or acknowledged. If we are capable of losing some of that importance, two extraordinary things would happen to us. One, we would free our energy from trying to maintain the illusory idea of our grandeur; and two, we would provide ourselves with enough energy to enter into the second attention to catch a glimpse of the actual grandeur of the universe.

all right, I'm done. If this doesn't work, next time you bum out, I'll bitch slap ya!

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

[Tinker]

So based on all of your comments, it is reaffirmed to me that this forum has come to exist more for others than for myself. I like posting here but I guess it's more about other people getting something from it.

What my primary interest is, is understanding the root of belief. This is where Mr. Perfect and I come into conflict, because he just wants to hit people over the head with hype. It's not as personal as it may come across. As someone once said to me, "What you're angry about isn't what you're angry about."

I'll put it into some perspective. Living in New York City, you live amongst constant hype. There are advertisements everywhere, and everyone has a puffed up sense of self and the importance of what they are doing. It's what gives the city its energy, but it can also be very very tiring. I once had to move from the city because the constant advertisements gave me a headache. I guess I am not so good at tuning things out. So Mr. Perfect who I see as 90% hype 10% substance drives me batty. It's not his political opinions that drive me nuts, it's that he rarely leaves hype mode. I would find an analogous leftist to be similarly annoying.

My inability to handle 'hype' has actually been a severe limiter on my career options and has screwed up my ability to get work. I have lost clients literally because my work went too deep for them. They actually said that this is why they were firing my team. My wife is much much better at compartmentalizing that stuff, and she works in the hype business and makes a pretty good living at it. I get frustrated when the hype to substance ratio is too high.

So I guess it's just a personal issue, whatever that means. But hype really annoys me, even though I know how to sell the hype and can be the best salesman in the world when I can get over it. I can perform repetitive and menial tasks, I can perform feats of endurance, if I give a shit about the thing that I am working on. If I feel like the business is mostly 'hype' then I have trouble. I have a hard time doing IT support for businesses that sell products that I think are meaningless.

So when Mr. Perfect pisses me off, it is NOT for ideological reasons, it's for behavioral ones. My view of this forum is that it is supposed to be a place where I come to find the truth or some semblance of it. So when it starts being taken over by what I see as 'hype', then that bugs me.

It's not existentially critical to the future of this forum. But I am reconsidering the existence of this forum. Not whether or not it should exist but what role I want to play in it and its future. So no one should worry about me shutting it down. Either I'll change the format (The equivalent of re-arranging the furniture) or I'll hand it off to Colonel Sun.

[Tinker]

[Azrael]

[skyhook77sfg]

SIMPLE

nice to see some familiarity with viktor frankl's search for meaning/logos...

as to quotes

i quote:


"The problem with people using quotes on the Internet is that they frequently take them out of context or fabricate them to suit their own rhetorical needs."

-Benjamin Franklin

[Azrael]

[crashtech]

I do often wonder if Mr. P is really as shallow and monomaniacal as his postings would suggest.

I think it would be fair to ask him nicely to confine his political postings to the appropriate sub-forum, where the hype would be easy to avoid. Maybe another "hellish" sub-forum is in order. We could call it "Political Hype and Talking Points"

[crashtech]

On second thought, Tinker, I feel even if this were done, you would end up in there arguing with Mr. P.

I'm not sure if you know your own mind on this issue.

[Simple Minded]

[Mr. Perfect]

[Tinker]

[skyhook77sfg]

highly unlikely americans will tolerate his dream of an ossified stratified alpha/khaki new world order....

some sort of technological nibelungen land.

he may think he's got genetics on his side but he doesnt...

nature does not recreate the past

his kind is an evolutionary dead end

you and others you have assembled on this forum

are archetypes of the future searching for the path

that you are already on.....

godspeed to you all

[Azrael]

[skyhook77sfg]

switzerland germany austria...economies our midget economists and politicians cannot call dysfunctional....

all have the Vermoegenssteuer....

a wealth tax on net worth paid annually.

a sort of equality equalization device

that also encourages using it or losing it.


imagine mr p peeing his panties when he reads this one....eh?

[Mr. Perfect]