How the hell did I get lumped into a group with Smeg and heb? Talk about a crush to my ego. I think you do take yourself a bit too seriously MacBeth, and your style is/was destined to damn you to a degree. Write a "good", long post and people will not notice, write a "bad", long post and people will get especially annoyed and remember, thus tainting all of your posts to "could be reduced to two sentences." Right or wrong I think that is what happens. I think it is funny that academia always gets thrown into the picture...nothing here comes close to academic writing and MacBeth is not an academic.
As a person who reads daily but rarely posts I'd like to say... WHAT?!? No more name calling? I'd prefer more name calling to keep things interesting.
1) I will certainly try to not take the contention that I often ramble, use 200 lines when a better poster would require 2, am silly, don't get to the point, and generally contribute irritating posts to the discussions at hand personally. I don't know what I was thinking. 2) I am not middle aged, that I know of. Sadly getting there, but as yet I can call the middle aged 'them'... 3) I see...a double whammy: I take myself too seriously coupled with a suggestion that I imply intellectual superiority; this from my response to your statement including me among those who " know nothing and talk about everything" wherein I lebelled myself a pedestrian intellect. I honeslty believe, heb, that you are talking out of both sides of your moth on this. Repeatedly taking swipes at someone's intelligence, posting,etc. and then saying they take themselves too seriously when they mildly respond is sort of cheap. I do have to admit that your position caught me off guard...I have been aware for some time of SJC and Rimmy's positions re: my posts, personality, what have you. I thought that SJC's motivation was political, ourely for timing reasons, but have been informed that it isn't. I have a pretty strong idea what rimmy's motivation is, but of course I could be wrong about that too. I don't think I had any interaction with him until he posted objecting to people stating that I was intelligent; apparently that bothered him, and his posts to me have been pretty negative ever since. Generally he implies that I take myself too seriously, in conjunction with his stance that he is the smartest guy on the block. I gave up a long time back trying to weed that one out. As for the site, this isn't the basketball forum. To presume that you know why everyone comes here, or what the primary motivation should be when discussing war, etc. is mildly insulting. I have put up with some poretty extreme bashing due to my positions on the war, so to come in afterwards and say " It's a basketball site, son. Chill out." smacks of failry obvious and selective condescension. I agree that the primary purpose of the board is basketball, but not this forum. If there has been a guideleine of who can and who can't take their arguments seriously, and on what subjects, I have not received it. If you have gotten or written one, please pass it on. Good luck with the applications. A friend just got into Oxford, and is really excited.
I will pass on most of this under the heading of stauts quo, but I'm not an academic? That explains so much...the strange looks I get when I teach a class, the hard time I get finding my mail in the department office, the fact that someone keeps trying to take my stapler, or moves my office to th basement and tells me to hunt rats in my spare time...I wish you had given me the fruits of your wisdom, based as they obviously are on an impartial assessment of my current profession, credentials, etc. sooner, as it would have saved so much time and confusion. I have been reluctant to be specific about details of my position in light of certain, er, less than conventional aspects of my personal life which I have revealed in here, so I am curious, rimmy, as to what the basis is for your assertion. Or not. Either way.
Well, I'm with SJC on this one. I like JAG as well as the next guy, but it wouldn't hurt for him to cut down on the clutter once in a while.
Thanks for the good will MacBeth... I still think that we are chatting past one another. Early on in my academic career, I routinely received the comments 'be concise' on my work... eventually those comments would push me towards the 'harder' sciences (ie look at the old Jared Diamond article on why 'softer' sciences are oftentimes harder than harder sciences) so that explains some of my jokes (that w/o context I assume just are confusing barbs...). I actually have a good bit of respect for you, as does SJC (I won't speak for rimmy, but call it a guess that his assertion that "you're not an academic was another one of those 'goat' things; it works well w/ people in academia... since people in academia invariably take themselves so seriously (though see above... my first science degree was geology... geologists are fun b/c they're all alcoholics)). Sorry if I got confused w/ the voice that I ascribed to your posts... it probably assumed too much familiarity. But my assertion that "we're on a rah rah site" isn't to suggest that we cannot discuss interesting things.... my whole point was that when tempers flair, you might want to sit back and realize that you are chatting w/ either: a) jocky nerds b) nerdy jocks c) rimbaud Most of the people on this site are young males... and if you've watched any Nickelodeon/Animal Planet or National Geographic... you'll notice that young males invest a ton of time in male-male competition. For that reason, expect a lot of razzing. It's a guy thing. Everyone on this site, including TJ, will call you a dork... and then buy you a beer afterwards. I can go on into silly things like the evolutions of memes and why the evolution of serious conversation is frequency dependent w/ occassional eruptions of Smeg, but I'll hold off b/c it's somewhat tangential... and I wouldn't want an admin to give me a <strike>strikethrough</strike> w/ a note about being concise.
Oops...I thought you said that you weren't - that you were "academic trained" but not actually practicing. My mistake. Sorry to get you so defensive. Not the first time I got something (everything) wrong. In regards to your comments about me in response to heb...sorry, you are off. I am not threatened by you (and I don't recall objecting to people calling you intelligent..that is just silly - there are plenty of really bright people on this bbs). We are just different. Oh well. PS - I guess you also misunderstood my little "explanation" since you passed it off as SQ. Oh well, part II.
Fair enough. We disagree on certain aspects. I feel that I take some subjects seriously, but in general am pretty self-effacing in here when not in a position of defending whether or not myposts are valid. Often the subject of my humour is myself, the length of my posts, etc. T_J started posting a whiile back that I claim to be the smartest poster, a claim I have never come close to, and I wonder if people assumed smoke=fire. As for mano a mano stuff, I largely try and avoid that in here, or don't take it seriously. HBut I don't think that I would criticize someone else's posts as irritating and without substance as a means of good natured ribbing. All that said, I would like to get this thread back on track, or at least understand how it got off track. Did you see my appeak for substance as some sort of pontification? I admited in the opening thread that I myself have been guilty of doing some of what I was objecting to, so I don't see the motivation for this kind of personalized backlash. I posted this thread in response to a growing desire to get past the kind of crap that has really taken over in the pat while, and reading Batman, giddy and others express a similar desire in other threads. How this was taken as a call to arms for those who feel that my posts are too long is beyond me.
1) No problem. I have been vauge at times, as I don't have tenure, am in a sort of gray area, and prefer to maintain some semblance of anonimity dure to the nature of some things I've spoken of openly in here which might cause bumps in my professional road. Probably not, but there is a chance. 2) If memory serves, our first interaction was in AB's post about WHat Poster IS The Best At kind of idea, and one of the categories was who would you call with your lifeline. After several posters named me, your response was, as close as I recall, something like " I don't get why people keep naming MacBeth. There are several posters I might call for help in some areas, but he would certainly not be among them." Now as you and I had never established any kind of rapport, thereby allowing for this to be chalked up as a good natured jab, the only interpretation left open to me was that you clearly objected to others commenting on my intelligence in a positive light. That has remained the general thrust of most of your responses to me, now including the 'get off your high horse' theme adopted since I objected to your intitial post in ABs thread. Had I known you, I would have laughed it off. Coming as it was out of the blue, I took it seriously. I don't see what would have lead me to assume otherwise. Then I was informed by many that you purportedly do or did trumpet yourself as the resident intellect, and the picture seemed fairly consistent. If I was incorrect, great, but can you honestly suggest that an alternate intepretation was apparent, given my experience?
Damn, MacB, now I remember. Actually, I said something along the lines of I wouldn't call you because you would be wrong and maintain that you were right. This came shortly after our little Louis XIV discussion where you said I was wrong and would prove it, then never got back to it. I was just giving you a hard time for that. Anyway, I cannot tell you how you "should" have responded to my comments. Listening to others about me...hmmm. By the way, if I recall correctly, our first real interaction was in the WWI thread about France...where we were basically agreeing.
Each member of the Clutch BBS has a duty to both represent his or her views in a manner befitting a Rockets fan and as a member of Mother Earth. If anything the Earth has taught us not to express our ideas solely with our minds, but our hearts as well. If your heart tells you that you are more intelligent than another person, then by all means you should let them know. There was a time when I was a young boy picking Spanish Moss from a giant Live Oak in Louisiana when I realized my goodness that is an extremely large tree. I didn’t think much more about Spanish Moss or Live Oaks the rest of that day, but I did think of other things. Ideas important to me—ideas that would someday be remembered again and be thought of fondly. Years later that giant Live Oak was struck by bolt of lightening as big as the PBS reading rainbow. Did that Live Oak give up, did it say to itself now is my time to throw in the Spanish Moss. No, because that old tree had the heart of a champion, and you should never underestimate the heartwood of a champion. Unfortunately though that heartwood was of exceptional quality. This jogged one of those ideas I spoke of earlier and it rushed through the various synapses in my brain until it formed a memory. Wood shingles were making a comeback and were very expensive – and this giant tree could make a great deal of wood shingles. It was that moment in which I outsmarted both that foolish tree and Mother Earth, I also realized I was the smartest person ever created through the union of sperm and egg. I had found my course in life, my duty if you will…I must inform the world of my abundance of intellect over and over again until there are no more electrons left to form text on a computer monitor. Did I really destroy that Live Oak my BBS brethren? Of course not the tree is simply a representation of your wooden posts, which are incapable of taking the reader on a journey of the mind and soul. I have been told my beautiful BBS soliloquies sing the angles to sleep. I hope you have enjoyed my post and will return in five minutes when I have added another 10 meg work of art to the BBS.
Ahhh..this whole thing might be premised on a misunderstanding. You are correct, I had meant to get back to you on the Louis XIV thing, but got caught up in other posts and forgot all about it. Never connected the two, and I can see what you were saying. I apologize. It was a rib, and I misinterpreted it. I hope you see how, given that misunderstanding, your shot was confusing and seemingly designed only to insult. I don't remember the WWI interaction, but as is often the case, I tend to recall those I debate with more clearly than those I agree with.
Thus spake MacBeth: I went down to the Clutch BBS yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston, to pray to the goddess; and at the same time, I wanted to observe how they would put on the festival, since they were now holding it for the first time. Now, MacB; you, quite unlike the fair Socrates, are not always cajoled by a slave boy into your discussions.....you often create them; yet, it could be said that your reason compels you to do so out of a care for the common good. To this I salute your posts. However, keep in mind when you speak to the masses that short attention span is real, albeit sad, and that being succinct is not a neccesarily bad thing. I am not yet an academic, seeing as I just finished undergrad, but I do plan to be, and to that you are a good example of how to be a jock nerd academic poster type.
This is absolutely true. Short attention span seems to be one of the common characteristics of our society these days.
MacBeth, I didn't have time to read the whole thread. But if you would agree to trim down the word count of your posts like any idiot would do, I'd agree to avoid caring about "volume" rather than "veracity." You see, unlike you, people like me do have a life to live. Sorry, can't resist taking a cheap shot at you. I agree with what you said and am tired of all the name calling and insults going on here.
I resent this, Achebe! I'm not "a". I'm not "b". I'm not French. And although I wish I were, I'm not young! (but I AM male) I have lost my temper badly before, however, and it was MacBeth who issued a call for civility... which I appreciated at the time. So this initial post of his did not come out of thin air.
