Threads exceeding their shelf-life.

[swansont]

If StringJunky and other members vexed for the umpteenth time at seeing these threads perpetuate don't make reports then the trend of aimless content-free waffling and stubbornness [say trolling] will continue.

 

I'm not so much a fan of the T-word. It implies intent — that the agenda is to drag the discussion out. That certainly takes place, but not, I think, in the threads I think are being discussed here. A version of Hanlon's law probably applies

 

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

 

Though I think stubbornness is a better ending word that applies in many of our instances

[StringJunky]

 

I'm not so much a fan of the T-word. It implies intent — that the agenda is to drag the discussion out. That certainly takes place, but not, I think, in the threads I think are being discussed here. A version of Hanlon's law probably applies

 

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

 

Though I think stubbornness is a better ending word that applies in many of our instances

That's right. More to do with self-discipline and consideration.

[Acme]

I'm not so much a fan of the T-word. It implies intent that the agenda is to drag the discussion out. That certainly takes place, but not, I think, in the threads I think are being discussed here. A version of Hanlon's law probably applies

 

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity

 

Though I think stubbornness is a better ending word that applies in many of our instances

Well, many months ago in the thread on trolls you & I agreed to disagree so we'll have to be content with that. As for stupid, we're not allowed to characterize folks that way here as I have understood it, but I have to agree that a lot of what we have to put up with is indeed stupidity. Ignorance can be corrected with learning, but not stupidity. The stubbornness is surely an issue you mods can and should put the kibosh on with regards to the threads StringJunky is complaining about here. Enough is enough.

[swansont]

I have to agree that a lot of what we have to put up with is indeed stupidity. Ignorance can be corrected with learning, but not stupidity.

 

But I'm saying it's not stupidity. It's unwillingness to learn, not the inability to do so.

[Acme]

But I'm saying it's not stupidity. It's unwillingness to learn, not the inability to do so.

That wasn't clear from your quote. You: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". If you think it's malice/unwillingness then stop it.

[swansont]

That wasn't clear from your quote.

 

You have to read the sentence that follows.

[Acme]

You have to read the sentence that follows.

I'm more than familiar with your mincing twisting of words and I'm not going to play that. StringJunky laid out the problem and others of us agree. While you and the staffers may run this place, it is after all a place for we the members. Edited May 19, 2015 by Acme

[hypervalent_iodine]

I'm more than familiar with your mincing twisting of words and I'm not going to play that. StringJunky laid out the problem and others of us agree. While you and the staffers may run this place, it is after all a place for we the members.

Mincing words? The sentence directly after the quote says:

 

Though I think stubbornness is a better ending word that applies in many of our instances

I think for the most part we all agree that certain threads go on longer than they should do and that earlier intervention would not go amiss.

[StringJunky]

.....I think for the most part we all agree that certain threads go on longer than they should do and that earlier intervention would not go amiss.

That's basically the long and short of it. Let's see what happens.

[swansont]

I think for the most part we all agree that certain threads go on longer than they should do and that earlier intervention would not go amiss.

 

I agree.

 

In speculations, we've tried to address this by having the guidelines posted, to make clearer what is expected if someone pops in with their "theory" of whatever.

 

However, one should also remember that non-participation is always an option. If one perceives that a conversation has gone stale, one can simply leave it.

[tar]

Thread,

 

Well, another way to look at it, is like the "good cop, bad cop" interogation method.

 

Many of the threads that Mike and I get involved in, are highly read, and are interesting, and people learn stuff from, and get new ideas from. I can't speak for Mike, but I know from me, I am not being willfully evil, and I am not stupid. I am stubborn though, and I overthink stuff, and I look for the "whys" when only the hows are presented. If there is an angle on a thing that does not seem correct to me, I push on, looking for a satifactory take on the situation.

 

I appreciate SwansonT's patience and time, responsponding to my posts in Mike's centrifugal thread, and I continue to post, because I don't agree with him, that my muses and questions have nothing to do with Mike's original post.

 

I try and admit when I am wrong, and I try to explain where I went wrong, when I recognize it, and I figure that helps both the students and the teachers on the board.

 

Sorry I have to be told a million times that I am wrong, before I see it, but I usually am holding on to some angle, that has not yet been totally explored, hence the goal post changing and the long threads. For instance, it still "appears" to a rider like there is an outward pull, and I am interested in arriving at a satisfactory (to me) answer to that question. I continue pursuing that goal, with perhaps the incorrect assumption, that someone else might also be unsatisfied.

 

Regards, TAR

Edited May 19, 2015 by tar

[swansont]

Thread,

 

Well, another way to look at it, is like the "good cop, bad cop" interogation method.

 

Many of the threads that Mike and I get involved in, are highly read, and are interesting, and people learn stuff from, and get new ideas from. I can't speak for Mike, but I know from me, I am not being willfully evil, and I am not stupid. I am stubborn though, and I overthink stuff, and I look for the "whys" when only the hows are presented. If there is an angle on a thing that does not seem correct to me, I push on, looking for a satifactory take on the situation.

 

I appreciate SwansonT's patience and time, responsponding to my posts in Mike's centrifugal thread, and I continue to post, because I don't agree with him, that my muses and questions have nothing to do with Mike's original post.

 

I try and admit when I am wrong, and I try to explain where I went wrong, when I recognize it, and I figure that helps both the students and the teachers on the board.

 

Sorry I have to be told a million times that I am wrong, before I see it, but I usually am holding on to some angle, that has not yet been totally explored, hence the goal post changing and the long threads. For instance, it still "appears" to a rider like there is an outward pull, and I am interested in arriving at a satisfactory (to me) answer to that question. I continue pursuing that goal, with perhaps the incorrect assumption, that someone else might also be unsatisfied.

 

Regards, TAR

 

IMO that points to an indication that you're doing it wrong. You say that people learn things, but it seems that the people who need to learn things aren't learning anything! People tell you that you are mistaken, and yet you stick to your guns. But the problem is that if your analysis is flawed, there's no reason to expect things to change if you still apply the same flawed analysis to a problem! That definition of insanity seems apropos here: "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

 

You simply can't proceed from the standpoint of "I'm right and all of physics is wrong". It doesn't work.

[Phi for All]

I try and admit when I am wrong, and I try to explain where I went wrong, when I recognize it,

 

...

 

Sorry I have to be told a million times that I am wrong, before I see it,

 

Usually, using this method, by the time you recognize where you went wrong, it's already been explained a million times. And you have to admit that "when I recognize it" is a flaw built into your methodology.

 

Knowing that it will take you a million times being told before you see it, wouldn't it be wiser (and more productive) to give up on your "angle" and investigate the evidence that usually accompanies the million reiterations? There are often times when your questions are answered in links you obviously didn't read.

 

I agree that this is stubborn behavior, but it's NOT the behavior of a skeptic. Skeptics doubt until they dig deeper and satisfy themselves that the explanation is wrong or may be right. They do NOT stubbornly hold onto their "angle" while a million bits of evidence are offered.

[tar]

Phi,

 

OK, I thought I was contributing, and have some good angles from time to time. I guess not so much as I thought. I will scale it way back, and be skeptical in private.

 

Regards, TAR

[Phi for All]

Phi,

 

OK, I thought I was contributing, and have some good angles from time to time. I guess not so much as I thought. I will scale it way back, and be skeptical in private.

 

Regards, TAR

I didn't say you weren't contributing. I didn't say you don't have good angles.

 

I said if you know it's going to take so long to understand something using your angles, might it not be better to approach the mainstream science head-on, and read the mainstream links provided? Know the box before trying to work outside it?

 

I also said I don't think you're being skeptical, just stubborn. Skeptics don't trust an explanation until they've checked it out, but they DO check it out, and make a decision based on what they find. They don't ignore evidence, they actively search for it. A true skeptic doesn't remain that way for long, they either decide an explanation works or it doesn't, and move forward from there.

[StringJunky]

I'm not sceptical about stuff that's been established for many decades. Most importantly, I know that there is much I don't know and wouldn't dream of contesting that which I have little knowledge of but has been around for twice as long, or more, as I've been alive. Science progresses from what is already known... it doesn't start from thin air. Like Phi says; know what's inside the box before you look outside of it.

[imatfaal]

FHS - there is NO box!

 

The notion of a box indicates a corpus of boring old knowledge that is accessed through standard mundane methods and a new exciting body of knowledge that requires flights of fancy, rampant imagination, and esoteric blue-sky thinking. This is not the case. Everything from Newton's Laws to Shor's Algorithm, from Galileo to Einstein, from Eratosthenes using the angle of the Sun to the GPS timing corrections using General relativity - ALL of this requires mathematical and experimental rigour, short logical steps from known to unknown, a firm basis on prior knowledge, and strict adherance to the scientific method.

 

There is no shortcut, there is no thinking out of the box, blue-sky thinking is vapid and worthless; you need to do the maths and you need to know your subject.

 

What really annoys me about this damnable box is the smug assertion, which is implicit in the usage, that imagination, conceptual depth and bewildering complexity are alien to the scientist. This is not only insulting - it is so so wrong

[/rant]

[tar]

Phi, StringJunky and Imatfaal,

 

Properly rebuked and advised.

 

I will attempt to refrain from throwing guesswork at questions where rigor is required...or where rigor has already been applied.

 

But, for the record, I still enjoy figuring stuff out for myself and have a hard time accepting other people's conclusions, without fully vetting their premises.

 

Regards, TAR

I guess I still have to learn that others have already been there and done that, and it is OK to trust their judgment.

I suppose that is where peer review comes in. If its established science, the premises have already been vetted.

Edited May 20, 2015 by tar

[StringJunky]

FHS - there is NO box!

 

The notion of a box indicates a corpus of boring old knowledge that is accessed through standard mundane methods and a new exciting body of knowledge that requires flights of fancy, rampant imagination, and esoteric blue-sky thinking. This is not the case. Everything from Newton's Laws to Shor's Algorithm, from Galileo to Einstein, from Eratosthenes using the angle of the Sun to the GPS timing corrections using General relativity - ALL of this requires mathematical and experimental rigour, short logical steps from known to unknown, a firm basis on prior knowledge, and strict adherance to the scientific method.

 

There is no shortcut, there is no thinking out of the box, blue-sky thinking is vapid and worthless; you need to do the maths and you need to know your subject.

 

What really annoys me about this damnable box is the smug assertion, which is implicit in the usage, that imagination, conceptual depth and bewildering complexity are alien to the scientist. This is not only insulting - it is so so wrong

[/rant]

I think of OOTB as: that which has not attained wide consensus. It's outside the boundary of the box but still part of it. When an idea is accepted, the size of the box grows. I see progress, really, as akin to building a bridge across a chasm where the other side cannot be seen.

 

 

Phi, StringJunky and Imatfaal,

 

Properly rebuked and advised.

 

I will attempt to refrain from throwing guesswork at questions where rigor is required...or where rigor has already been applied.

 

But, for the record, I still enjoy figuring stuff out for myself and have a hard time accepting other people's conclusions, without fully vetting their premises.

 

Regards, TAR

I guess I still have to learn that others have already been there and done that, and it is OK to trust their judgment.

I suppose that is where peer review comes in. If its established science, the premises have already been vetted.

I'm pointing at anybody in particular. I think the best approach to learning is to be like a radio and absorb the information. Spontaneous scepticism as soon as you hear something stops you absorbing and digesting properly The stuff we talk about here is very well-trodden and understood by those that do, I don't think one should try to reinvent the wheel until one understands it inside-out.

 

I think many harbour a secret fantasy to be the next Einstein or Newton (Guilty yer 'onour! ) and, hence, constantly pushing towards being original in their forum dialogue. The only thing is, most are not willing to swot years/decades of their life learning what is already known, just like those two did.

[tar]

StringJunky,

 

I think you are right, that people envision themselves as much more capable than they are. The example I use, to humble myself is when I think I would do something differently "if I was president", is the thought that if I actually had the capability to BE president, I would at least be chairman of the local school board, or head coach of the little league team. (which I am not)

 

But, in regards to the threads that have exceeded their shelf life, I would like to submit the other side of the expert coin for consideration. There is the 'joy of learning'. It is a fantastic feeling to stand on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and hear the story about when the spanish explorer first came upon it with his party, he sent several of his group down to the river for some water for dinner...they came back 3 days later. He had know idea of the scale of the thing he was looking at.

 

There is a pleasure in gaining an insight. There is a pleasure in sharing an insight. There is not much pleasure in being told one's insight is old news, or is wrong. So what, the Grand Canyon is just a big rent in the surface of the Earth. Millions have seen it, measured it, documented and studied it. It is established fact...but still fantastic to experience for the first time.

 

Regards, TAR