John,
Yeah. And look how well that worked. It didn't.
Most people who post drivel to lists like this honestly don't think they're
posting drivel. Their ignorance runs very, very deep (in many cases to the
point of clinical self-delusion). It is as deep as their conviction that
they are smarter than everybody else; a conviction they will evince in every
post they make (if only by declaring how everyone else has "missed the
point" or is "barking up the wrong tree"). And, in most cases, if you take
them on directly (i.e., rise to their bait), they will bury you in mounds
and mounds of more, and better-targeted, drivel. You will spend the rest of
your productive life trying to dig yourself out from under their prolific,
but vacant, verbiage giving them even more opportunities to spew their
nonsense. They'll throw straw man after straw man at you. When you finally
just give up in frustration, they will use that as further evidence (to
themselves and, if they can spin it just right, to others) of their own
correctness.
These people are, typically, pretty handy with the English language and love
to talk about themselves and their "unique creations." In general terms, of
course. Their ideas are so world-shattering that they must keep the details
close to their vest, you see. I suspect most of these folks also have high
IQ's. They're just intellectually lazy. They really don't see why they
should have to study what others before them (or even their contemporaries)
have struggled to elucidate. After all, that's the intellectual equivalent
of manual labor. They're too smart for that. They'd rather construct their
own world from whole cloth and, then, spend their intellectually-work-free
days trying to shove it down everyone else's throats.
While these people may, occasionally, have something "interesting" to say,
it won't be because they have any interesting ideas. It will be because
they produce a huge volume of words. Random chance says that, somewhere in
there, they are bound to produce an utterance meaningful to others at some
point. To them, of course, all of their own utterances are supremely
meaningful.
I brought this problem up about a month ago and received some gentle
criticism about throwing the baby out with the bathwater and how history
demonstrates that most true paradigm-shift creators were considered
crackpots in their own time. The difference is that those creators had
empirical evidence, or solid reasoning, to back up their ideas and they were
eager to have others independently verify their discoveries. Trolls don't
have any evidence (that they'll let you independently examine) nor does
their reasoning hold up under even the slightest external scrutiny.
I have never advocated kicking anyone off an e-mail list (or from anywhere
else) unless their postings are totally off-topic (i.e., spam, hate, porn).
I'm one with Thomas Jefferson who said, ""I would rather be exposed to the
inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small
a degree of it." Although, in practice, history shows even he had his
limits.
My suggestion: adjust your e-mail client's troll filters. Adjust both the
"from" and "content" filters. You'll still have to manually weed out the
occasional reply to their drivel that slips through, but this should relieve
you from having to get your blood pressure up over everything the trolls
write. Works for me!
Cheers,
Brad
----- Original Message -----
From: "John G. Rose" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2008 3:37 PM
Subject: RE: [agi] Porting MindForth AI into JavaScript Mind.html
It's hard to refute something vague or irrelevant, with 10 volumes of
Astrology background behind it, and it's not necessary, as nonsense is
usually self-evident. What's needed is merciless moderation...
I think it's overdue for someone to get a good Waseration.
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agi
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