Trying to find the root of this

[Steve]

I think this needs to be here.

Ah good, just checking I had the hang of the quote function on this forum. All seems to be in order.

Yep. Still working.

Just curious about how deep we can nest the quotes.

Five deep.

That seems pretty exhaustive...

[skintbuthappy]

It was only a matter of time.
See this article on edge.org.
You science bods can probably read this with clear consciences, but we frivolous-minded types don't come out of it at all well.
Still, if the cap fits, I for one am resigned to wearing it.

It's damnably tight around the ears, though.

[ED209]

I am too busy to visit the RD forums very often, but I was surprised by the low standard I found there and it hardly encouraged me to re-visit. I have only ever made a handful of posts, usually to announce something constructive I have done.

This guy is an absolute fucking cunt. Fuck him and his allegedly delightful 24-year-old wife, who was so scandalously ignored by Dawkins when she wrote to him asking to make the internet more reflective of her tastes, which just in case anyone is interested are:

I like to read, learn, sew, act, sing, dance, cook, cross-stitch, paint and other artistic things...Pretty much everything that doesn't involve: gambling, drinking, partying, smoking, sports, hooking up, hypocrisy, wilfull ignorance and especially religion. I like the Victorian era and Burlesque, but I deeply dislike joining neo movements because such movements seem superficial to me, whereas I have a true appreciation for them. I also believe that women should be ladies and not harm others or engage in inappropriate behaviour. I rarely drink alcohol and never drink pints of beer because I find that highly unfeminine. When at the pub, I prefer a cranberry juice or lemonade.

...according to her myspace, which is linked from that blog. She actually goes on to post her vital statistics right there on the fucking internet under her real name and photo, not sure how Victorian a value that is but they begin with the unremarkable 37B and we've delved into that pompous toe-rag's life enough. Who cares what he thought of the old site? Although the fucking nerve of slagging off members by name when his supposedly busy important and constructive life amounts to little more than writing a completely inconsequential blog where he whines about being out-debated in a forum format grates a little.



Just realised I've never once used quotation tags on this site. Do they work similarly to other forums? Let me see....

I think this needs to be here.

Ah good, just checking I had the hang of the quote function on this forum. All seems to be in order.

Yep. Still working.

Just curious about how deep we can nest the quotes.

Five deep.

...five deep is the maximum it seems.

[fredbear]

It was only a matter of time.
See this article on edge.org.
You science bods can probably read this with clear consciences, but we frivolous-minded types don't come out of it at all well.
Still, if the cap fits, I for one am resigned to wearing it.

It's damnably tight around the ears, though.

how galling.
how pompous.
how easy it is to remain above the arena in one's ivory tower and pass condescending invective on the ants below.
yes it is easy for some to hide behind the anonimity of their user names (particularly in atheist hostile territory) but it seems equally easy to hide behind the actions of 2 relatively anonymous people who treat those anonymous people with the contempt only held for pariah dogs.
when was this article written? clearly dawkins is on a major pr clean up job and he needs to do a little spring cleaning. this combined with gavin orland's high moral tone are clear indications that dawkins needed a final solution to deal with the detritus.
well we have been told haven't we. despite our combined qualifications and interests, our obvious interest in matters beyond the inane we are the vapid low lives, some of whom are lazy and stupid enough not to even have day jobs, who have chosen to puctuate our viewing of jeremy kyle with inconsequential and vacuous posting.
prof dawkin's hubris suggests a fall.

[skintbuthappy]

It was only a matter of time.
See this article on edge.org.
You science bods can probably read this with clear consciences, but we frivolous-minded types don't come out of it at all well.
Still, if the cap fits, I for one am resigned to wearing it.

It's damnably tight around the ears, though.

how galling.
how pompous.
how easy it is to remain above the arena in one's ivory tower and pass condescending on the ants below.
yes it is easy for some to hide behind the anonimity of their user names (particularly in atheist hostile territory) but it seems equally easy to hide behind the actions of 2 relatively anonymous people to treat those anonymous people with the contempt only held for pariah dogs.
when was this article written? clearly dawkins is on a major pr clean up job and he needs to do a little spring cleaning. this combined with gavin orland's high moral tone are clear indications that dawkins needed a final solution to deal with the detritus.
well we have been told haven't we. despite our combined qualifications and interests, our obvious interest in matters beyond the inane we are the vapid low lives, some of whom are lazy and stupid enough not to even have day jobs, who have chosen to puctuate our viewing of jeremy kyle with inconsequential and vacuous posting.
prof dawkin's hubris suggests a fall.

2009, date not specified.
I found it about a month ago.
Should have posted it on RDF somwehere, shouldn't I? On one of those vapid and mindless threads... where everybody would have seen it!


And as for the PR clean-up job - who can tell? Maybe RD is in line for that knighthood after all? Time to kiss Establishment ass, perhaps?

[fredbear]

I am too busy to visit the RD forums very often, but I was surprised by the low standard I found there and it hardly encouraged me to re-visit. I have only ever made a handful of posts, usually to announce something constructive I have done.

This guy is an absolute fucking cunt. Fuck him and his allegedly delightful 24-year-old wife, who was so scandalously ignored by Dawkins when she wrote to him asking to make the internet more reflective of her tastes, which just in case anyone is interested are:

I like to read, learn, sew, act, sing, dance, cook, cross-stitch, paint and other artistic things...Pretty much everything that doesn't involve: gambling, drinking, partying, smoking, sports, hooking up, hypocrisy, wilfull ignorance and especially religion. I like the Victorian era and Burlesque, but I deeply dislike joining neo movements because such movements seem superficial to me, whereas I have a true appreciation for them. I also believe that women should be ladies and not harm others or engage in inappropriate behaviour. I rarely drink alcohol and never drink pints of beer because I find that highly unfeminine. When at the pub, I prefer a cranberry juice or lemonade.

...according to her myspace, which is linked from that blog. She actually goes on to post her vital statistics right there on the fucking internet under her real name and photo, not sure how Victorian a value that is but they begin with the unremarkable 37B and we've delved into that pompous toe-rag's life enough. Who cares what he thought of the old site? Although the fucking nerve of slagging off members by name when his supposedly busy important and constructive life amounts to little more than writing a completely inconsequential blog where he whines about being out-debated in a forum format grates a little.

yes wasn't his insistance on stating her age hilarious..like harry enfield's mid life crisis guy.."here's my girlfriend she's 23 years old! she works in an office..she's 23 years old!!"
i wondered if his wife was the woman on the thread he cites which would explain his vigilante tone in his blog?

[fredbear]

It was only a matter of time.
See this article on edge.org.
You science bods can probably read this with clear consciences, but we frivolous-minded types don't come out of it at all well.
Still, if the cap fits, I for one am resigned to wearing it.

It's damnably tight around the ears, though.

how galling.
how pompous.
how easy it is to remain above the arena in one's ivory tower and pass condescending on the ants below.
yes it is easy for some to hide behind the anonimity of their user names (particularly in atheist hostile territory) but it seems equally easy to hide behind the actions of 2 relatively anonymous people to treat those anonymous people with the contempt only held for pariah dogs.
when was this article written? clearly dawkins is on a major pr clean up job and he needs to do a little spring cleaning. this combined with gavin orland's high moral tone are clear indications that dawkins needed a final solution to deal with the detritus.
well we have been told haven't we. despite our combined qualifications and interests, our obvious interest in matters beyond the inane we are the vapid low lives, some of whom are lazy and stupid enough not to even have day jobs, who have chosen to puctuate our viewing of jeremy kyle with inconsequential and vacuous posting.
prof dawkin's hubris suggests a fall.

2009, date not specified.
I found it about a month ago.
Should have posted it on RDF somwehere, shouldn't I? On one of those vapid and mindless threads... where everybody would have seen it!


And as for the PR clean-up job - who can tell? Maybe RD is in line for that knighthood after all? Time to kiss Establishment ass, perhaps?

don't worry skintbuthappy. i doubt it would have affected dawkin's plans. that said i wonder if you should post this on the main thread it may get more hits. i think people need to see exactly where dawkins stands in relation to this debacle. he definitely continued to see the forum as an embarrassment.

[Thommo]

That Gavin Orland guy sounds like a nutjob.

Paraphrase: "RDF is a terrible place because people use such naughty words all the time, and furthermore, they don't allow racism or sexism! No Sir, that does not sound like my kind of forum at all - in my perfect world everyone on the internet would be clean mouthed racists!"

The guy is calling Geert Wilders a "truth speaker" and quoting "Dr Goebbels". I know a site that could well suit his apparent tastes - Stormfront.

[skintbuthappy]

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

[natselrox]

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

Things are getting heated up here!

[skintbuthappy]

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

Things are getting heated up here!

No, mate. Now cooled to a chilly disinterest.

Hope you have saved your piece about the Northern Lights.

[natselrox]

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

Things are getting heated up here!

No, mate. Now cooled to a chilly disinterest.

Hope you have saved your piece about the Northern Lights.

I saved all the articles! Especially your nice poetry!

[skintbuthappy]

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

Things are getting heated up here!

No, mate. Now cooled to a chilly disinterest.

Hope you have saved your piece about the Northern Lights.

I saved all the articles! Especially your nice poetry!

Sound work, my friend!
Maybe we can start up the comp again over here... though I think Mazille has one or two other matters preoccupying him just at the moment...

[Comte de Saint-Germain]

LOL. My comment which was merely critical, not abrasive, course or insulting was removed simply on the basis of disagreement. Shows exactly the credentials of the people agreeing with Josh..

[anthonzi]

Compare:

It was only a matter of time.
See this article on edge.org.
You science bods can probably read this with clear consciences, but we frivolous-minded types don't come out of it at all well.
Still, if the cap fits, I for one am resigned to wearing it.

It's damnably tight around the ears, though.

Dated to January 2010 to those who asked:

http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_1.html#dawkins
RICHARD DAWKINS
Evolutionary Biologist; Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, Oxford; Author, The Greatest Show on Earth

NET GAIN

If, forty years ago, the Edge Question had been "What do you anticipate will most radically change the way you think during the next forty years?" my mind would have flown instantly to a then recent article in Scientific American (September 1966) about 'Project MAC'. Nothing to do with the Apple Mac, which it long pre-dated, Project MAC was an MIT-based cooperative enterprise in pioneering computer science. It included the circle of AI innovators surrounding Marvin Minsky but, oddly, that was not the part that captured my imagination. What really excited me, as a user of the large mainframe computers that were all you could get in those days, was something that nowadays would seem utterly commonplace: the then astonishing fact that up to 30 people simultaneously, from all around the MIT campus and even from their homes, could simultaneously log in to the same computer: simultaneously communicate with it and with each other. mirabile dictum, the co-authors of a paper could work on it simultaneously, drawing upon a shared database in the computer, even though they might be miles apart. In principle, they could be on opposite sides of the globe.

Today that sounds absurdly modest. It's hard to recapture how futuristic it was at the time. The post-Berners-Lee world of 2009, if we could have imagined it forty years ago, would have seemed shattering. Anybody with a cheap laptop computer, and an averagely fast WiFi connection, can enjoy the illusion of bouncing dizzily around the world in full colour, from a beach Webcam in Portugal to a chess match in Vladivostok, and Google Earth actually lets you fly the full length of the intervening landscape as if on a magic carpet. You can drop in for a chat at a virtual pub, in a virtual town whose geographical location is so irrelevant as to be literally non-existent (and the content of whose LOL-punctuated conversation, alas, is likely to be of a drivelling fatuity that insults the technology that mediates it).

'Pearls before swine' over-estimates the average chat-room conversation, but it is the pearls of hardware and software that inspire me: the Internet itself and the World Wide Web, succinctly defined by Wikipedia as "a system of interlinked hypertext documents contained on the Internet." The Web is a work of genius, one of the highest achievements of the human species, whose most remarkable quality is that it was not constructed by one individual genius like Tim Berners-Lee or Steve Wozniak or Alan Kay, nor by a top-down company like Sony or IBM, but by an anarchistic confederation of largely anonymous units located (irrelevantly) all over the world. It is Project MAC writ large. Suprahumanly large. Moreover, there is not one massive central computer with lots of satellites, as in Project MAC, but a distributed network of computers of different sizes, speeds and manufacturers, a network that nobody, literally nobody, ever designed or put together, but which grew, haphazardly, organically, in a way that is not just biological but specifically ecological.

Of course there are negative aspects, but they are easily forgiven. I've already referred to the lamentable content of many chat room conversations without editorial control. The tendency to flaming rudeness is fostered by the convention — whose sociological provenance we might discuss one day — of anonymity. Insults and obscenities, to which you would not dream of signing your real name, flow gleefully from the keyboard when you are masquerading online as 'TinkyWinky' or 'FlubPoodle' or 'ArchWeasel'.

And then there is the perennial problem of sorting out true information from false. Fast search engines tempt us to see the entire Web as a gigantic encyclopaedia, while forgetting that traditional encyclopaedias were rigorously edited and their entries authored by chosen experts. Having said that, I am repeatedly astounded by how good Wikipedia can be. I calibrate Wikipedia by looking up the few things I really do know about (and may indeed have written the entry for in traditional encyclopaedias) say 'Evolution' or 'Natural Selection'. I am so impressed by these calibratory forays that I go, with some confidence, to other entries where I lack first-hand knowledge (which was why I felt able to quote Wikipedia's definition of the Web, above). No doubt mistakes creep in, or are even maliciously inserted, but the half-life of a mistake, before the natural correction mechanism kills it, is encouragingly short. Nevertheless, the fact that the Wiki concept works, even if only in some areas such as science, flies so flagrantly in the face of all my prior pessimism, that I am tempted to see it as a metaphor for all that deserves optimism about the World Wide Web.

Optimistic we may be, but there is a lot of rubbish on the Web, more than in printed books, perhaps because they cost more to produce (and, alas, there's plenty of rubbish there too). But the speed and ubiquity of the Internet actually helps us to be on our critical guard. If a report on one site sounds implausible (or too plausible to be true) you can quickly check it on several more. Urban legends and other viral memes are helpfully catalogued on various sites. When we receive one of those panicky warnings (often attributed to Microsoft or Symantec) about a dangerous computer virus, we do not spam it to our entire address book but instead Google a key phrase from the warning itself. It usually turns out to be, say, "Hoax Number 76", its history and geography meticulously tracked.

Perhaps the main downside of the Internet is that surfing can be addictive and a prodigious timewaster, encouraging a habit of butterflying from topic to topic, rather than attending to one thing at a time. But I want to leave negativity and nay saying and end with some speculative — perhaps more positive — observations. The unplanned worldwide unification that the Web is achieving (a science-fiction enthusiast might discern the embryonic stirrings of a new life form) mirrors the evolution of the nervous system in multicellular animals. A certain school of psychologists might see it as mirroring the development of each individual's personality, as a fusion among split and distributed beginnings in infancy.

I am reminded of an insight that comes from Fred Hoyle's science fiction novel, The Black Cloud. The cloud is a superhuman interstellar traveller, whose 'nervous system' consists of units that communicate with each other by radio — orders of magnitude faster than our puttering nerve impulses. But in what sense is the cloud to be seen as a single individual rather than a society? The answer is that interconnectedness that is sufficiently fast blurs the distinction. A human society would effectively become one individual if we could read each other's thoughts through direct, high speed, brain-to-brain radio transmission. Something like that may eventually meld the various units that constitute the Internet.

This futuristic speculation recalls the beginning of my essay. What if we look forty years into the future? Moore's Law will probably continue for at least part of that time, enough to wreak some astonishing magic (as it would seem to our puny imaginations if we could be granted a sneak preview today). Retrieval from the communal exosomatic memory will become dramatically faster, and we shall rely less on the memory in our skulls. At present we still need biological brains to provide the cross-referencing and association, but more sophisticated software and faster hardware will increasingly usurp even that function.

The high-resolution colour rendering of virtual reality will improve to the point where the distinction from the real world becomes unnervingly hard to notice. Large-scale communal games such as Second Life will become disconcertingly addictive to many ordinary people who understand little of what goes on in the engine room. And let's not be snobbish about that. For many people around the world, 'first life' reality has few charms and, even for those more fortunate, active participation in a virtual world is more intellectually stimulating than the life of a couch potato slumped in idle thrall to 'Big Brother'. To intellectuals, Second Life and its souped-up successors will become laboratories of sociology, experimental psychology and their successor disciplines, yet to be invented and named. Whole economies, ecologies, and perhaps personalities will exist nowhere other than in virtual space.

Finally, there may be political implications. Apartheid South Africa tried to suppress opposition by banning television, and eventually had to give up. It will be more difficult to ban the Internet. Theocratic or otherwise malign regimes, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia today, may find it increasingly hard to bamboozle their citizens with their evil nonsense. Whether, on balance, the Internet benefits the oppressed more than the oppressor is controversial, and at present may vary from region to region (see, for example, the exchange between Evgeny Morozov and Clay Shirky in Prospect, Nov-Dec 2009).

It is said that Twitter is playing an important part in the current unrest in Iran, and latest news from that faith-pit encourages the view that the trend will be towards a net positive effect of the Internet on political liberty. We can at least hope that the faster, more ubiquitous and above all cheaper Internet of the future may hasten the long-awaited downfall of Ayatollahs, Mullahs, Popes, Televangelists, and all who wield power through the control (whether cynical or sincere) of gullible minds. Perhaps Tim Berners-Lee will one day earn the Nobel Prize for Peace.

With
http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 0&t=110356

Aha.

THIS is the root of this......

Does anyone else think he changed his opinion over the past month or so?

Relavent bits from the Edge question site:
Pro:

The Web is a work of genius, one of the highest achievements of the human species, whose most remarkable quality is that it was not constructed by one individual genius like Tim Berners-Lee or Steve Wozniak or Alan Kay, nor by a top-down company like Sony or IBM, but by an anarchistic confederation of largely anonymous units located (irrelevantly) all over the world.

Moreover, there is not one massive central computer with lots of satellites, as in Project MAC, but a distributed network of computers of different sizes, speeds and manufacturers, a network that nobody, literally nobody, ever designed or put together, but which grew, haphazardly, organically, in a way that is not just biological but specifically ecological.

Nevertheless, the fact that the Wiki concept works, even if only in some areas such as science, flies so flagrantly in the face of all my prior pessimism, that I am tempted to see it as a metaphor for all that deserves optimism about the World Wide Web.

But the speed and ubiquity of the Internet actually helps us to be on our critical guard. If a report on one site sounds implausible (or too plausible to be true) you can quickly check it on several more. Urban legends and other viral memes are helpfully catalogued on various sites. When we receive one of those panicky warnings (often attributed to Microsoft or Symantec) about a dangerous computer virus, we do not spam it to our entire address book but instead Google a key phrase from the warning itself. It usually turns out to be, say, "Hoax Number 76", its history and geography meticulously tracked.

Con:

and the content of whose LOL-punctuated conversation, alas, is likely to be of a drivelling fatuity that insults the technology that mediates it

I've already referred to the lamentable content of many chat room conversations without editorial control. The tendency to flaming rudeness is fostered by the convention — whose sociological provenance we might discuss one day — of anonymity. Insults and obscenities, to which you would not dream of signing your real name...

Both articles:
Regarding Despotism

For many people around the world, 'first life' reality has few charms and, even for those more fortunate, active participation in a virtual world is more intellectually stimulating than the life of a couch potato slumped in idle thrall to 'Big Brother'

Apartheid South Africa tried to suppress opposition by banning television, and eventually had to give up. It will be more difficult to ban the Internet. Theocratic or otherwise malign regimes, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia today, may find it increasingly hard to bamboozle their citizens with their evil nonsense.

We can at least hope that the faster, more ubiquitous and above all cheaper Internet of the future may hasten the long-awaited downfall of...and all who wield power through the control of gullible minds.

Contrast:

Editorial control, mark you, by the person who, more than any other individual, has earned the right to the editor’s chair by founding the site in the first place, then maintaining its high standard by hard work and sheer talent.

Yes, a purely objective statement. It does not sound like cronyism at all.

...scepticism...

The presence of this word in this document is simply ironic, that's all really.

one in which quality will take precedence over quantity...where frivolous gossip will be reduced

And where we pull the plug on everything in an instant and delete years worth of content, regardless of quality (see above).

Was there ever such conservatism, such reactionary aversion to change, such vicious language in defence of a comfortable status quo?

Ya, cus you handled this change completely within reason...

...you know who should receive your private apology. And if you are one of those who are as disgusted by it as I am, you know where to send your warm letter of support.

Thou shalt bow before your Dear Leader and give him your unyielding loyalty!

The Old Man might not not know it, but he seems to retain some conservative values that blind him to the realities of what he has instigated. Petty insults should not affect his judgment in this matter. But they seem to cloud every inch of what he said in the forum post. The belligerent attitude of a few have somehow allowed him to blanket the entire community and denounce everyone as heretics. Have we not learned how to filter out legitimate complaints and address them rationally? I'm afraid Dawkins is getting caught up in some of the trappings of the old ways of thinking. I have no idea what kind of intrigue was happening within the administration of the Forum, but his reaction is far from objective.