Darryl Shannon wrote:
> The trouble is that so many of the big questions about the future MUST
> be political and economic in nature.
Not necessarily. There's the "blue sky" type debates, which are mostly
about things like "What can be done?" or "What should be done?" -- and
then there's the "practical" debates, which are mainly about questions
like "What will we do?" It's the latter that tend to be political.
A couple of years ago (Ifni! Has it been so long?) most of the strings on
this list tended to be of a "blue sky" type, but as time went by more and
more people have gotten into "practical" discussions. There's nothing
wrong with that -- it's natural evolution, like someone said -- but that
doesn't mean that political debate is inevitable.
> Also, begin and participate in threads OTHER than political threads.
Jolly good idea, wot wot. :)
> "Look, over there! That guy said Captain Kirk is better than Captain
> Picard!"
Who?! Give me the bounder's name! Grrrr.....
> So, I would ask that people who prefer conversation acknowledge that
> sometimes their hastily chosen whimseys are going to be picked apart
> line by line, with footnotes and links to tables of figures.
Picked apart line by line? What sort of person would stoop so low as to do
a thing like that? ;)
I *dream* of being able to refute someone with footnotes and links to
numerical tables, but, alas, everyone here is too smart for that. :)
That was a good post, tho. You brought up a number of excellent points.
Kevin Street
