From: Calvin Ashmore (coa@andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: Fri May 07 2004 - 19:45:19 MDT
Jei wrote:
<<<
And so? What about it? I don't fancy doing lots of work
on history research for the sake of you people on this
list. "Prove me this, prove me that, now tell me how
great a country we are, and what all good things we have
done, and oh by the way, you're an anti-semite for being critical, and you
must hate america too! You boo boo!"
- At best, I rate this list is as an amusement. Sometimes there's also some
good links, but nowadays, it isn't even remotely constructive. Whatever I
bother to post, I do either for fun, or the fact that I want to break some
ballooning american ego-bubbles, knowing they will bark back as much as they
can. - This list was good before the "religion/church" was started. After
that, duh. - Some kind of american thing, these new age "religions"? How
about a normal registered club instead?
>>>
While I'm not a particularly active member of the Virus community, I still
am a member, and am extremely aggrieved by this post. The *point* of Virus
is to be a memetically engineered religion, and the community (in its better
days) tends to digest news and hold philosophical discussions from a
scientific/memetic perspective.
The idea is to ask questions, view all things from a critical eye, and when
making assertions, to be fucking prepared to defend them without throwing a
fucking tantrum.
While you may not like the political viewpoints of Jonathan and Joe, they
have at least been somewhat *civil* and have been arguing within some range
of intellectual discussion. Jonathan has been doing a particularly good job
at this. And as for sources, sometimes they're just fucking inconsistend and
there's not a goddamn thing anyone can do about it. Arguing about the
validity of each other's sources gets pretty old and is remarkably
ineffectual as far as things go.
While it's all well and good that you see the list as amusement, there are
others here who take it with a fair degree of seriousness and if you can't
give us that, and you can't make an argument without reducing to some dogma
(I don't care whose dogma it is) or throwing a fit, then the least you can
fucking do is be civil.
You may notice that I have not accused you of anything regarding the
discussion at hand. I am keeping my political opinions to myself for now
because contributing to this thread (which has been going on for about two
years now) is not a productive end. I would however, like to stop opening up
my mailbox and seeing a bunch of smart-assed sarcastic remarks from you in
protest of engaging in actual discussion.
I and, I am sure, many others would be very appreciative if you cut it out.
Thank you.
-Calvin
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