From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Nov 13 2002 - 08:29:36 MST
Samantha writes
> Jesus! Do we have nothing better to do than argue the earth-shattering
> questions in "Duck Me" and sift through the personality conflicts
> ensuing from any long-winded discussion here or deeply consider the oh
> so important question for weeks of what socialism is and is not?
Yes, it does seem a shame that one of the brightest groups I know of on-line
doesn't have questions and issues that ought to be ironed out. I tried to
follow SL4 for a while, but it was *too* much, and with the time I had
available, ancient loyalty won out.
The problem is deeper and much more personal for me: my best friend
may be undergoing a mid-life crisis, and the ostensible surface
phenomenon is that fundamental issues---which excited him so
completely for so many years---appear to be all dried up for some
reason. Me, I'm rather used to it. I stopped having any major
philosophic advances in about 1988, and only once in a blue moon
now have any fundamentally new ideas.
> You would think that our lives were rather boring and that we
> are at pains to take any excuse imaginable for a little diversion
> judging from the recent predominant list topics. For the sake of
> *the* future, starting with our own, I hope this is simply a
> temporary anomaly.
Me, too. The inappropriately named thread "duck me" still holds
my attention because I'm curious about the psychology of what will
happen when uploads spawn copies of themselves and how they'll
value each other. Moreover, I would still like to become more
quiescent about my own anticipations, *anticipation* remaining
a central part of my daily life, yet evidently theoretically
incoherent.
Why didn't you change the name of the thread? Why does Damien,
either here or on SL4 have to scold the list for lack of thread
discipline? How is it, psychologically, that people who can
write a substantive message for ten minutes cannot take 15 seconds
to change the topic line. Are there manifestations of addiction
here? (maybe I should have started a new thread for that! ;-)
Eugen writes
>> For the sake of *the* future, starting with our own, I hope this is
>> simply a temporary anomaly.
> Alas, no. Can't say anything about socialism, but the identity thread is
> always completely predictable, never generates any new insights, and goes
> on and on and on and on, until the delete finger is worn down to the bone.
Amazing. Eugen has himself made two contributions, albeit minor
ones: the handy term "forking" is entirely due to him, and, so
far as I can tell, his position is not entirely the same as it
was years back.
Moreover, I saw at least two people, Jef and Rafal, go to level seven,
and one or two more get closer to it than they were before (I think).
> However, this is utterly dwarfed by the amount of hot air currently
> produced on wta-talk.
Oh great. The anomie afflicting my friend is spreading.
Lee
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