Lord Jim wrote:I have a suggestion for those who have embraced the idea that the board is "imploding"....
Take a two week hiatus from posting, and read the discussions that take place while you are not involved...
And see how "imploded" the place looks in your absence....
I think you would find the results quite illuminating...
An interesting idea. If this board's search function is working properly, I did not post at all from 20 August through 28 September (which is rather more than two weeks), and during the two weeks from 25 October through 7 November, I posted once (and the bulk of that posting was a reposting).
I did find the results quite illuminating. The great flame-wars did not relent.
Gob was still flaming
loCAtek,
Gob was still flaming
quaddriver,
loCAtek was still flaming
Gob,
loCAtek was still flaming
The Hen,
quaddriver was still flaming
Gob,
quaddriver was still flaming
The Hen,
The Hen was still flaming
loCAtek, and
The Hen was still flaming
quaddriver.
(The foregoing are in strict alphabetical order; no preference is intended, and none should be inferred.)
Lord Jim was still taking his, charitably put, odd view of all matters evidentiary -- a view pursuant to which (a) any proposition which he does not like can be proved/substantiated/justified only by a demonstration comparable to
Principia Mathematica; (b) any proposition which he does like need to be proved/substantiated/justified at all; (c) any evidence which he does not find persuasive is no longer evidence; and the burden of proving/substantiating/justifying any proposition is always on the person who is not he -- and
bigskygal was still doing her drama-queen thing.
Crackpot was still trying to redirect discussions to substantive things, especially on matters of Christian theology.
MajGen'l.Meade was doing the same (at least during the first of my afore-mentioned absences).
Scooter was still demonstrating his striking combination of breadth and depth of knowledge.
dgs49 and
liberty1 were still taking their strict-constructionist view of the Constitution (which is, in some instances, as it turns out, not strict at all; it requires reading into the Constitution things which do not actually appear in it).
Etc., etc., etc.
In short, precious little had changed. Except that some valued posters had stopped posting here. I really have neither the time nor the inclination to hunt through everyone, but, for example,
GrossDad stopped posting here while I was gone, not when I was here.
So those of you who claim that my absence would change things should consider the evidence: My absences have not changed things in the past; why would my absence change things now?
Reason is valuable only when it performs against the wordless physical background of the universe.