GENIUS FORUMS

The reason I called you a shit shoveler on this forum is because you are one. Why you are satisfied to be one is anybody's guess. You are clearly of high intelligence, yet for some unknown reason (unknown to me, obviously, and perhaps only me) you seem to be content to repeat over and over the philosophy ostensibly espoused by the founders of this forum. Your writing is drone-like, and you appear to have a seriousness out of all proportion to anything. It seems important to you to be seen as wise, which if you were you wouldn't have to browbeat others into having your point of view. I don't think you do it on purpose, that is, come across as a know-it-all who must always be right. I think you would have made a smashing lawyer. You're not one, are you? One can never tell these days. Having a Weininger fixation has probably never benefitted anyone in the material sense. His suicide was no doubt a mercy killing. This forum is holding you back. Reach for the stars, not Otto Weininger.

cousinbasil wrote:His suicide was no doubt a mercy killing.

Weininger, Condemnation, 1902 wrote:

In a strange document entitled "Condemnation," written in November 1902, about a year before his suicide, Weininger likened his interior world to a house. Of what was going on inside it Weininger wrote: "A wild desperate activity, a slow terrifying realization in the dark, an eternal clearing out of things. Do not ask how it looks inside the house."

"That is the worst, not being able to love when one is loved and knows one is loved, with hatred toward that bitter feeling of a desire to love deep down in the heart. This petrificarion, this barrenness! An olive tree on the hardest granite! My soul cannot free itself and enter into that of another who loves me."

In a letter to a friend, Arthur Gerber, written in the time leading up to his death, Weininger wrote, "The man who fails in suicide? He is the complete criminal, because he wants life in order to revenge himself. All evil is revenge!"

Weininger wrote:The suicide is almost always a sadist, because he alone wants to get out of a situation and can act; a masochist must first question all eternity whether he may, should, take his own life.

Weininger wrote:I cannot comprehend life so long as I am living it… Only death can teach me the meaning of life,

"The danger of insanity," he confided in his friend, "is always present in those who try to penetrate the discipline of logic and pure knowledge,"

So isn't there more personal writings of Weininger that may concern his suicide or something?

cousinbasil wrote:The reason I called you a shit shoveler on this forum is because you are one. Why you are satisfied to be one is anybody's guess. You are clearly of high intelligence, yet for some unknown reason (unknown to me, obviously, and perhaps only me) you seem to be content to repeat over and over the philosophy ostensibly espoused by the founders of this forum. Your writing is drone-like, and you appear to have a seriousness out of all proportion to anything. It seems important to you to be seen as wise, which if you were you wouldn't have to browbeat others into having your point of view. I don't think you do it on purpose, that is, come across as a know-it-all who must always be right. I think you would have made a smashing lawyer. You're not one, are you? One can never tell these days. Having a Weininger fixation has probably never benefitted anyone in the material sense. His suicide was no doubt a mercy killing. This forum is holding you back. Reach for the stars, not Otto Weininger.

Leaving aside your view on Weininger, since I think that is a side issue, the best way to respond is that I understand what Kevin et al. are talking about, and I value it highly.

I certainly don't browbeat people. I respond directly and simply in an unapologetic manner, which is to be expected on a philosophy forum. It's a venue for high-quality reasoning, and similar techniques. It's not a place where we should condone emotional manipulation, like turning on the tears, victimisation talk, or name-calling such as "shit shoveler".


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I certainly don't browbeat people. I respond directly and simply in an unapologetic manner, which is to be expected on a philosophy forum. It's a venue for high-quality reasoning, and similar techniques. It's not a place where we should condone emotional manipulation, like turning on the tears, victimisation talk, or name-calling such as "shit shoveler".

I don't see any emotional manipulation going on, neither do I see where victimization comes into play. Likewise with the turning on the tears mention. But I do see that you were offended by being called a "shit-shoveler." I admit I could have perhaps phrased it differently. Exactly how, I am as yet uncertain, but in the meantime I do quite apologize for the ruffled feathers. I believe there is a saying that goes something like one can't make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.

Obviously I also value what each of Q,R, and S have had to say in their writings. That respect, however, does not make it less unseemly when one of them summarily hands a contributor his or her walking papers. The bottom line is that it is up to the discretion of the board moderators who can stay and who can not. Subsequently stating it was for that member's own welfare is highly condescending. I respect that David admitted she bored him, anything else is "shoveling."

My views on Weininger are not fully formed, since I am less than halfway through his SAC. I wish my German were as proficient as Diebert's English so I could read it as it was written. It comes across as stilted and dated. This was quite the confused young man. When I was 23, believed my head to be bursting with things that only I knew. In a similar vein, I took a year and wrote much of it down. The sheer isolation the effort it required served to sever several important relationships that I was never to get back, and suicide became for me, for the first time, an option that I actually considered, a rational alternative.

Weininger at 23 could not have possessed enough wisdom that he should be in anyone's pantheon. He was unable even to be a Jew properly, it seems. But being the open-minded sort that I am I shall plod on through SAC and see if I can't get perhaps a glimmer of what all the fuss is about.

I think "shit shoveler" could be taken in many ways, but I had a hunch you meant it crudely. That is why I called you out in an emphatic way to explain.

Name-calling, and ad hominem attacks, are very base animalistic behaviour. They're definitely emotional manipulation.

As for turning on the tears, and victimisation talk, there have been plenty of examples. One for illustrative purposes: "everyone's attacking me or women" (a paraphrase of something Carmel uttered recently).

Obviously I also value what each of Q,R, and S have had to say in their writings. That respect, however, does not make it less unseemly when one of them summarily hands a contributor his or her walking papers.

This is a mild example of turning on the tears. Alternatively, it's a chauvinistic attempt to defend a distressed damsel. Do you really not know that one of the common functions of a forum administrator is to encourage members to use the forum for its ostensible purpose, and to moderate or ban members who don't?

But banning or kicking someone out is within reason. For instance, if strangers come around to your house, defecate freely, masturbate on the front lawn, rip up your garden and chop down your trees, and scream obscenities at your neighbours and yourself, --- and they had no good reasons to offer for doing so, and you weren't made wiser by their behaviour --- would it be unseemly to kick them out? Of course not.

My views on Weininger are not fully formed, since I am less than halfway through his SAC.

I see. Then your earlier statement above ought to be formally retracted.

Also, thank you for making the effort to be more human.


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Kelly wrote:But banning or kicking someone out is within reason. For instance, if strangers come around to your house, defecate freely, masturbate on the front lawn, rip up your garden and chop down your trees, and scream obscenities at your neighbours and yourself, --- and they had no good reasons to offer for doing so, and you weren't made wiser by their behaviour --- would it be unseemly to kick them out? Of course not.

There you go again. Let me get my boots.

If Carmel's gender had nothing to do with her being banned, then maybe you ought to refrain from using the "damsel in distress" metaphor. Perhaps I sensed it was a matter of a member being ganged up upon regardless of that member's gender? Could that not be it?

If you want to keep a lid on the emotional appeal, then what is up with this characterization of Carmel trashing someone's house? And masturbating? Good heavens. And defecating! Did she really do all that? If so, I completely missed it.

Then your earlier statement above ought to be formally retracted.

I intend to do nothing of the sort. I stand by my initial impressions of Weininger and continue to have an open mind as I get further through his "opus." When I say I am less than halfway through SAC, I was referring to the process of actually reading it in its entirety, as opposed to taking a "checksum" approach. This will not be the first thing I have read. Long experience tells me I am quite adept at getting the gist of material before turning up the resolution, as it were. Surprises are lamentably few.

cousinbasil wrote:If Carmel's gender had nothing to do with her being banned, then maybe you ought to refrain from using the "damsel in distress" metaphor.

Why? The person trying to behave gallantly and rescue her isn't the person who banned her.

Perhaps I sensed it was a matter of a member being ganged up upon regardless of that member's gender? Could that not be it?

Two people constitutes a ganging-up, in which one of the two is helpfully facilitating their thinking processes?

If you want to keep a lid on the emotional appeal, then what is up with this characterization of Carmel trashing someone's house? And masturbating? Good heavens. And defecating! Did she really do all that? If so, I completely missed it.

If a person refuses to examine writings with finely-pointed reasoning, open-mindedness, calmness, and a courageous desire to overcome personal emotional reactions in order to work out the most objective principles laid out; if instead the person chooses to ignore all evidence, create strawman objections, calls others names unfairly, and declares exemption from any personal responsibilities, then it is essentially identical to a guest trashing someone's house, masturbating in front of others, and defecating on their furniture.

If you cannot see this, then perhaps you like what she did, and believe you should be permitted to behave likewise.

KJ: Then your earlier statement above ought to be formally retracted.

CB: I intend to do nothing of the sort. I stand by my initial impressions of Weininger and continue to have an open mind as I get further through his "opus." When I say I am less than halfway through SAC, I was referring to the process of actually reading it in its entirety, as opposed to taking a "checksum" approach.

There is no checksum available to indicate its authenticity, or rather, the reader's own judgment, in fear and trembling, is the reference.

This will not be the first thing I have read. Long experience tells me I am quite adept at getting the gist of material before turning up the resolution, as it were. Surprises are lamentably few.

Well, I have found that my own perceptions, thoughts, experiences, and moods change dramatically the meanings I construct for exactly the same words.

A single phrase. Hundreds of finely nuanced variations. Lessons of the Infinite. To take a single meaning and fix it on a phrase, ignoring the abstracting character of the word which never can describe all the intricacies of even a single real event, is like a cabbage-headed country bumpkin tasting fine wine.


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cousinbasil: If Carmel's gender had nothing to do with her being banned, then maybe you ought to refrain from using the "damsel in distress" metaphor.

Kelly Jones: Why? The person trying to behave gallantly and rescue her isn't the person who banned her.

This reply makes no sense. If your stance is that Carmel's being female has no bearing on her being banned, then your stance is that the same would have happened to any member issuing the posts she did. For you to bring up the "damsel in distress" stereotype contradicts that stance - it is hardly an unbiased justification, it is attacking those who questioned the banishment decision in the same terms you claim that do not apply, namely, that gender was an issue.

cb: Perhaps I sensed it was a matter of a member being ganged up upon regardless of that member's gender? Could that not be it?

KJ: Two people constitutes a ganging-up, in which one of the two is helpfully facilitating their thinking processes?

Yes, two against one is ganging up, and it was more than two. The claim that one of the two is "helpfully facilitating their (sic) thinking process" is, naturally, disingenuous. It does, however, raise the question of what the other of the two was attempting to do. Then again, perhaps in your book denying one's thinking process an avenue of expression is facilitating it. In mine, this statement is "shoveling it."

...if instead the person chooses to ignore all evidence, create strawman objections, calls others names unfairly, and declares exemption from any personal responsibilities, then it is essentially identical to a guest trashing someone's house, masturbating in front of others, and defecating on their furniture.

If you cannot see this, then perhaps you like what she did, and believe you should be permitted to behave likewise.

Liking what she did has nothing to do with it and you know that - I do not believe she should have been banished. I disagree with far more of the things you write, yet I would object at least as strongly if you were banned. By the way, I believe my point in its entirety was that David bullied Carmel out. Which he did, and you know it. I do not think I even implied he doesn't have the right to do that - it's his banquet, as he puts it - he gets to decide which beggars grovel for the crumbs from his overflowing table.

There is no checksum available to indicate its authenticity, or rather, the reader's own judgment, in fear and trembling, is the reference.

A checksum reveals a difference between a string and another string against which the same checksum algorithm has been run. It cannot verify authenticity under any circumstances. It can only indicate authenticity if run against two strings one of which is known to be authentic.

I am now more than halfway through SAC, and I can tell you that anyone who reacts with fear and trembling to it is a pussy. Rather, any one who lionizes this work or its author should be abjectly ashamed of him- or herself.

Well, I have found that my own perceptions, thoughts, experiences, and moods change dramatically the meanings I construct for exactly the same words.

How flighty of you, how womanish. Why not try to get the author's meaning instead?

To take a single meaning and fix it on a phrase, ignoring the abstracting character of the word which never can describe all the intricacies of even a single real event, is like a cabbage-headed country bumpkin tasting fine wine.

I resemble that remark!

Carmel was banned for repeatedly insulting other members without provocation, and being generally difficult. David said as much. To my knowledge, it is a common policy on internet forums to ban people who insult other people without the latter responding, or who include a lot of obscenities in their posts for no reason. So I don't know what your point is, other than if you are seeing this as a free speech issue(i.e, "I'll defend your right to say that I shouldn't defend your rights," et al), which it isn't.

jupiviv wrote:Carmel was banned for repeatedly insulting other members without provocation, and being generally difficult. David said as much. To my knowledge, it is a common policy on internet forums to ban people who insult other people without the latter responding, or who include a lot of obscenities in their posts for no reason. So I don't know what your point is, other than if you are seeing this as a free speech issue(i.e, "I'll defend your right to say that I shouldn't defend your rights," et al), which it isn't.

I believe I made my point clearly several times. You have mischaracterized it - perhaps if you read my previous post, that would clear up any misapprehension on your part.

Kelly wrote:...if instead the person chooses to ignore all evidence, create strawman objections, calls others names unfairly, and declares exemption from any personal responsibilities, then it is essentially identical to a guest trashing someone's house, masturbating in front of others, and defecating on their furniture.

If you cannot see this, then perhaps you like what she did, and believe you should be permitted to behave likewise.

I neglected to add in the last post of mine in which I cited this quote from you, Kelly, that of course I cannot see this, because it is a silly, fantastical exaggeration - a figment of your imagination, which you write in order to be incendiary.

As to your taunt that perhaps I "like" what she did, etc., it is a poorly veiled threat that if I or anyone defends whatever it was that she "did" that was so heinous, that person will be banned from GF as well. It doesn't concern me in the least.

No matter what Carmel could have written, it could not possibly be "essentially identical" to this scenario. If someone actually did this to your residence, you would not characterize such vandalism as being "essentially identical" to a person being disagreeable in an online forum. Imagine yourself trying to legally recoup damages from such an act upon your residence, and drawing this comparison in your formal complaint. Your claim would be dismissed instantly.

No, I will stick with David's statement that Carmel bored him. It is much more believable and not histrionic like what you have said.

Kelly Jones wrote:I think "shit shoveler" could be taken in many ways, but I had a hunch you meant it crudely..

It's ironic that you didn't 'look up' shit-shoveler..In internet slang it usually refers to one who regularly compiles a whole lot of quotes and information from various sources and posts it all in one long tedious compendium, in order to come off as a boorish, condescending know-it-all.

Only to you, prince. Some people enjoy knowledge.

Cousinbasil, I put it to you again, putting aside Carmel's banning completely: what would you do as an administrator (hypothetical) if a member of your forum consistently refused to cooperate with your requests, and you had good reason to make them?

Serious question. I'm interested in your answer.

Kelly Jones wrote:Only to you, prince. Some people enjoy knowledge.

Ok, what knowledge do you have that I don't, you pretentious bore?

Kelly Jones wrote:Cousinbasil, I put it to you again, putting aside Carmel's banning completely: what would you do as an administrator (hypothetical) if a member of your forum consistently refused to cooperate with your requests, and you had good reason to make them?

Serious question. I'm interested in your answer.

I would ban that person. Next question.

Prince, the selection of quotes on the history of education in various countries was reasonable, since only a small section in each long Wikipedia article referred to gender.

Your gripe is only an indication that you resent someone telling things as they see it, without apology.

I'm not condescending, because my aim is to pull people out of the bog. There's no shame in being stuck in the bog, sometimes the vacuum is too strong for one to pull oneself out. I was in that situation literally, a couple of weeks ago, when walking in deep, sucking mud in south west Tasmania, and needed a friend to pull me out. Was my friend condescending for being in a better position, on solid ground? No, they were being helpful - though I nearly pulled them in as well.

Condescension is pushing people in.

cousinbasil wrote:

Kelly Jones wrote:Cousinbasil, I put it to you again, putting aside Carmel's banning completely: what would you do as an administrator (hypothetical) if a member of your forum consistently refused to cooperate with your requests, and you had good reason to make them?

Serious question. I'm interested in your answer.

I would ban that person. Next question.

Well, that's all there is to it. That's David's perspective, so you can't fault his decision.

Kelly wrote:Well, that's all there is to it. That's David's perspective, so you can't fault his decision.

I thought you said "putting aside Carmel's banning completely." Now you are bringing it back.

I shut out the situation close at hand in order for us to focus on a principle. That's what justice is, or ought to be, founded on. So, reapplying the principle in the specific case means one can judge if justice was meted out or not.

Waiting for someone to cooperate, and waiting, and waiting, could include some elements of boredom. But if someone is generally very patient, waiting a long time, and then acting firmly and conclusively, that boredom wouldn't have played a large role.

Bored yet? A light-hearted look at Deep Mud.

Aha. Ahahahaha.

What a silly girl.

prince wrote:Ok, what knowledge do you have that I don't, you pretentious bore?

How quaint. A boor calls Kelly a bore.

How quaint, an idiot meddles.

And an Admin says: stop trolling.

Kelly Jones wrote:Your gripe is only an indication that you resent someone telling things as they see it, without apology.

Wait until your apple-cart gets tipped over, girl. And I'll be sitting right here, laughing at you.

Laughng my fucking ass off.