Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to re: Not even maybe?

My work here is done.
ER — (archived)

Philosophy wins arguments, politics is about process and dialogue and conflict and compromise. You can't always get what you want. Unless you use the gun.

You're angry and you're impatient and you think I'm out to get you. I'm not, but the fact that you feel that way scares me. I'm not sure what the right answers are, but you are and that scares me even more. You tell me you're tired of people telling you how to live and run your life, but three quarters of your communications to this science forum are about telling people how you think and why they should think that way and why they shouldn't think some other way. You monitor every thread and you intervene in any which you feel threatening to your convictions, even when many of them are innocuous and irrelevant, or perhaps only vaguely and slightly political (like this one, read for yourself how my comments on map-making started this brawl). And when things get too quiet you throw more fuel on the fire, it never stops. The amount of research you put into it is obsessive, but nobody ever reads it: you can't prove political points with facts, its ALL a matter of interpretation. If it wasn't, political questions would be settled by scientists and lawyers. But they're not, they're settled by talk or violence.

Lighten up, Tom. You're bright and articulate, I enjoy talking to you, and sometimes you're even right, but I'm really getting tired of having to watch everything I say without having to worry about getting a face full of claws. Sure, I'm guilty of crossing swords with you every now and then, and even occasionally enjoying it, but your capacity for conflict seems infinite. I've tried avoiding the longer political threads, I've tried being neutral, I've tried to be the middle of the roader, I've tried to guide the conversation in other directions, but it always comes to this. I've always felt myself to be pretty moderate, just somewhat left of center, but you come on like I was Mao on steroids.

Find yourself a Marxist BB where you can find people who REALLY have contrasting views and get it out of your system and then come back here and relax and talk about art and science and philosophy and anything else that's going on. Because right now, not much else is happening here but politics, and its really starting to become a crashing bore.

I know I'm a newby here, and I certainly don't have any right to tell anyone what to post. And I'm certainly not advocating we stop all political posting. All I'm asking for is a little relief. And if any of you others who are reading this think I'm out of line, tell me and I'll just go away. Maybe I'm just to dim to realize I don't fit in.

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