"Consent of the Governed": Now a Commodity

[coberst]

“Consent of the Governed”: Now a Commodity

Commodity—an article of commerce

“According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every day”—An excerpt from Al Gore’s book “The Assault On Reason” contained in May 28 issue of TIME.

We have traded our democratic inheritance for a few hours of vapid TV distraction.

I am convinced that we have one avenue out of this terrible predicament into which we have fallen; we American adults must significantly improve our level of intellectual sophistication.

This can easily be done in a most delightful way; we adults can take one hour a day that we now spend on a couch before a TV screen and utilize that time studying the books that will enlighten us as to who we are and why we do the things we do.

Self-actualizing self-learning is a simple and powerful solution to a most dangerous and pressing situation. We have nothing to lose but our apathy and ignorance; and we have everything to gain, including our self-respect and the respect of generations to come.

[SAMAS]

You know, this would make a much better discussion if, you know, you actually had it open for discussion, rather than a copying out of a book you read.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

What the hell does self-actualizing self-learning me? I have read it about 10 times, and I still can't understand what the fuck you're talking about.

It sounds like one of those buzzword self-help gimmicks.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Mean* Sorry for the typographical error.

*What does it mean?"

[Darth Wong]

“Consent of the Governed”: Now a Commodity

Commodity—an article of commerce

“According to an authoritative global study, Americans now watch television an average of 4 hours and 35 minutes every day”—An excerpt from Al Gore’s book “The Assault On Reason” contained in May 28 issue of TIME.

We have traded our democratic inheritance for a few hours of vapid TV distraction.

I am convinced that we have one avenue out of this terrible predicament into which we have fallen; we American adults must significantly improve our level of intellectual sophistication.

This can easily be done in a most delightful way; we adults can take one hour a day that we now spend on a couch before a TV screen and utilize that time studying the books that will enlighten us as to who we are and why we do the things we do.

Self-actualizing self-learning is a simple and powerful solution to a most dangerous and pressing situation. We have nothing to lose but our apathy and ignorance; and we have everything to gain, including our self-respect and the respect of generations to come.

Your habit of posting snippets out of books you've read and then failing to engage in any actual discussion is growing very tiresome. Hell, I actually agree with this latest sentiment but I still find your entire attitude to be extremely annoying. You're supposed to be a human being, not a listbot.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I think one problem is that a lot of people today thing learning is boring or a snore-chore. A lot of people would rather veg. out in front of the boob tube all day long and do nothing.

The hard part is to try to convince people that it is not boring; I think that's hard because I don't think people really have that mindset or it's likely to happen. People don't change their habits and mentalities easily.

People do watch a lot of TV because it's essentially passive entertainment and learning, while reading is far more active and straining. People are generallhy creatures who gravitate toward pleasure and laziness. Now, not all people are like this. I have no ideally, really, what makes some people do it and some people not do it, other than perhaps the family environment influencing opportunity and interest.

Laziness, however, goes far beyond its manifestation in watching TV. I can't even get professionals to do their jobs half of the time because they would rather be doing something that takes less effort, time, and strain.


Now, I read all the time, although not as much as I would like, but I recognize it's not an activity you can mindlessly veg out on after a day of doing other things. Some people probably just don't see the utility in learning something that probably has no direct impact on their lives. You would be amazed how interested people become in learning information about obscure shit when it actually affects them (e.g. ABA).

[Stark]

The very idea that a sizable fraction of any population can 'significantly improve their level of intellectual sophistication' seems absurd. To most people, that sounds both worthless and boring. THAT'S the problem, not some bullshit soundbyte 'lol traded democracy' nonsense - ATTITUDE towards education, not the idea of self-help homeschooling.

Frankly, I find posting someone else's work outside a quotebox to be very misleading. I hate it when Shep does it, but he's been here so long nobody expects anything he posts to be other than huge reams of cut n paste with pictures of tanks in it: Coberst is new, and I think he's made ONE post so far that appears to be his own words. Shep also includes references, so you know what he's talking about and where he got it - not this context-free, discussion-free, regurgitated bullshit.

[NeoGoomba]

So if I take one hour a day reading the articles in Playboy, I'll become sophisticated?

HOT DOG!

Kidding aside, I do actually agree with this. My father talks about when he was a kid and his father (a BIGTIME history buff) and mother would actually debate subjects like politics and economics at the dinner table. Now, my parents and younger brother debate the finer points of life, like who has control of the remote after the dishes are done, or why Happy Gilmore was superior to Billy Madison. Nowadays it seems so much easier for people to shut out the world and turn on the TV (or iPod) than to actively involve yourself, even if it is just your mind working through current issues.

[Coyote]

Self-actualizing ... is a simple and powerful solution to a most dangerous and pressing situation. We have nothing to lose but our apathy and ignorance; and we have everything to gain, including our self-respect and the respect of generations to come.

Isn't this ironic? I mean, considering that you're just lazily posting bits & stuff from a book someone else wrote, researched, & published? Aren't you doing little more than giving "written sound bites" as a poor excuse for engagement and conversation?

In fact, I think a motion is in order....

[coberst]

I think one problem is that a lot of people today thing learning is boring or a snore-chore. A lot of people would rather veg. out in front of the boob tube all day long and do nothing.

The hard part is to try to convince people that it is not boring; I think that's hard because I don't think people really have that mindset or it's likely to happen. People don't change their habits and mentalities easily.

People do watch a lot of TV because it's essentially passive entertainment and learning, while reading is far more active and straining. People are generallhy creatures who gravitate toward pleasure and laziness. Now, not all people are like this. I have no ideally, really, what makes some people do it and some people not do it, other than perhaps the family environment influencing opportunity and interest.

Laziness, however, goes far beyond its manifestation in watching TV. I can't even get professionals to do their jobs half of the time because they would rather be doing something that takes less effort, time, and strain.


Now, I read all the time, although not as much as I would like, but I recognize it's not an activity you can mindlessly veg out on after a day of doing other things. Some people probably just don't see the utility in learning something that probably has no direct impact on their lives. You would be amazed how interested people become in learning information about obscure shit when it actually affects them (e.g. ABA).

I think that we all have great and varied abilities and potentials; the problem seems to be one of discovering these potentials and them turning that potential energy into kinetic energy. The problem is utilizing that energy for some form of action that is appropriate for that particular person.

To self-actualize is a concept that I take from Maslow and it means taking our potential and converting it into a suitable form for realizing the potential in action. I think that some form of mental action is what is required to make that happens.

I am a retired engineer with a good bit of formal education and twenty five years of self-learning. I began the self-learning experience while in my mid-forties. I had no goal in mind; I was just following my intellectual curiosity in whatever direction it led me. This hobby, self-learning, has become very important to me. I have bounced around from one hobby to another but have always been enticed back by the excitement I have discovered in this learning process. Carl Sagan is quoted as having written; “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy.”

I label myself as a September Scholar because I began the process at mid-life and because my quest is disinterested knowledge.

Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term ‘disinterested knowledge’ as similar to ‘pure research’, as compared to ‘applied research’. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.

I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand. The September Scholar seeks to ‘see’ and then to ‘grasp’ through intellection directed at understanding the self as well as the world. The knowledge and understanding that is sought by the September Scholar are determined only by personal motivations. It is noteworthy that disinterested knowledge is knowledge I am driven to acquire because it is of dominating interest to me. Because I have such an interest in this disinterested knowledge my adrenaline level rises in anticipation of my voyage of discovery.

We often use the metaphors of ‘seeing’ for knowing and ‘grasping’ for understanding. I think these metaphors significantly illuminate the difference between these two forms of intellection. We see much but grasp little. It takes great force to impel us to go beyond seeing to the point of grasping. The force driving us is the strong personal involvement we have to the question that guides our quest. I think it is this inclusion of self-fulfillment, as associated with the question, that makes self-learning so important.

The self-learner of disinterested knowledge is engaged in a single-minded search for understanding. The goal, grasping the ‘truth’, is generally of insignificant consequence in comparison to the single-minded search. Others must judge the value of the ‘truth’ discovered by the autodidactic. I suggest that truth, should it be of any universal value, will evolve in a biological fashion when a significant number of pursuers of disinterested knowledge engage in dialogue.

We develop as we gain experience—interact with the world. Self-learning is one way of interacting with the world. Through the process of reading we apprehend the world and in this interaction a dialectic process develops. As I experience, through reading, I attempt to 'make sense' of the world and thus develop ever-richer and more sophisticated concepts. As I conceive this more sophisticated worldview I am also creating a more sophisticated self. The word ‘conception’ is an accurate word for the result of this experience. Just as the interaction of the two genders of all creatures result often in new life so does the interaction of reader and author.

There are books available in most community college libraries written by experts especially for the lay reader. I would guess that virtually all matters of interest are copiously and expertly elaborated upon by experts wishing to inform the public about every subject imaginable. Quantum theory and theory of relativity are examples of the most esoteric domains of knowledge accessible to most readers sufficiently motivated to persevere through some difficult study. For twenty-five dollars a year I am a ‘Friend of the Library’ at my community college and thus able to borrow any book therein.

The experience the September Scholar seeks is solely determined by his or her own internal ‘voice’. The curiosity and imagination of the learner drive the voice. Our formal education system has left most of us with little appreciation or understanding of our own curiosity and imagination. That characteristic so obvious in children has been subdued and, I suspect, stilled to the point that each one attempting this journey of discovery must make a conscious effort to reinvigorate the ‘inner voice’. We must search to ‘hear’ the voice, which is perhaps only a whisper that has become a stranger in our life. But, let me assure you, once freed again that voice will drive the self-learner with the excitement and satisfaction commensurate to any other experience.

I grew up in a Catholic family living in a small town in Oklahoma. My teachers were nuns and I learned how to read often by reading my Baltimore Catechism. The catechism is a small book, fitting easily in the back pocket of a pair of overalls, with a brown paper cover that contains the fundamental doctrine of the Catholic faith. It is in a question and answer format. I can still remember, after more than sixty years, the first page of that book.

Question: Who made you?
Answer: God made me.
Question: Why did God make you?
Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

Before I had read the adventures of “Jack and Jill”, I had learned the answers to the most profound questions that has troubled humanity for more than twenty-five hundred years. Such was the educational methodology that changed little for the next sixteen years of my formal education. My teachers always told me what was important and what I must ‘know’ to be educated. The good student learned early to understand that education was a process of determining what questions the teacher regarded as important and to remember, for the test, the correct answers to those important questions. Since I was not required to provide the questions for the test I never concerned myself with such unimportant trivia as questions. I could always depend upon the teacher to come forward with all the questions.

I seek disinterested knowledge because I wish to understand. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my quest. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination.

The self-learner must develop the ability to create the questions. We have never before given any thought to questions but now, if we wish to take a journey of discover, we must learn the most important aspect of any educational process. We must create questions that will guide our travels. We can no longer depend upon education by coercion to guide us; we have the opportunity to develop education driven by the “ecstasy to understand”.

I suspect that most parents attempt to motivate their children to make good grades in school so that their child might go to college and live the American Dream. The college degree is a ticket to the land of dreams (where one produces and consumes more than his or her neighbor). I do not wish to praise or to bury this dream. I think there is great value resulting from this mode of education but it is earned at great sacrifice.

The point I wish to pivot on is the fact that higher education in America has become a commodity. To commodify means: to turn (as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity (an economic good). I would say that the intrinsic value of education is wisdom. It is wisdom that is sacrificed by our comodified higher education system. Our universities produce individuals capable of developing a great technology but lacking the wisdom to manage the world modified by that technology.

How can a nation recover the intrinsic value of education without undermining the valuable commodity that our higher education has become?

I think that there is much to applaud in our higher educational system. It produces graduates that have proven their ability to significantly guide our society into a cornucopia of material wealth. Perhaps, however, like the Midas touch, this gold has a down side. The down side is a paucity of collective wisdom within the society. I consider wisdom to be a sensitive synthesis of broad knowledge, deep understanding and solid judgement. I suggest that if one individual in a thousand, who has passed the age of forty would become a September Scholar, we could significantly replace the wisdom lost by our comodified higher education.

Knowing and Understanding

For a long time I have been trying to grasp the distinction between knowing and understanding. I think I have recently stumbled upon a new theory that might help me a great deal in my attempt to discover this distinction.

I have recently discovered a contender for paradigm within the cognitive science community. Metaphor theory has in the last thirty years begun to advance important discoveries regarding the nature of the ‘embodied mind’. This theory insists that much of our mental activity is unconscious and driven by the neural networks associated with body sensory and motor control networks. Metaphors are far more important to our knowledge and understanding than previously thought. We live by metaphor.

I have just begun to study metaphor theory and perhaps will change my mind but, as of this moment, I am getting hints that this theory will be very important for me and for cognitive science. It has already helped me to grasp the distinction between knowledge and understanding. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable of this theory to give detail now but, if you are interested, you might do a Google to begin your journey for understanding metaphor theory.

To get an idea of the distinction between knowing and understanding we can examine the metaphors we commonly use for these two concepts. I ‘see’ when I know and I ‘grasp’ it or I ‘got a handle’ on it when I understand. We can see much but we grasp little. We see at a distance but grasp only what is up close. We are much more intimate with what we grasp than with what we see. We might say ‘seeing is believing’ but I do not think we are comfortable with saying ‘seeing is understanding’.

My interests tend to lead me toward such philosophical matters but the point is, each person determines what is important to her or him. Each person takes that path that ‘fits’ for them. No one knows what that might be but the individual herself and often she will not create the same type of questions tomorrow as today.

I pointed out earlier that the September Scholar was driven by an interest in disinterested knowledge. You might add to that paradox that the September Scholar seeks disinterested knowledge because s/he is engaged in a journey of understanding of both the self and the other.
From Net-worth to Self-worth

In the United States our culture compels us to have a purpose. Our culture defines that purpose to be ‘maximize production and consumption’. As a result all good children feel compelled to become a successful producer and consumer. All good children both consciously and unconsciously organize their life for this journey.

At mid-life many citizens begin to analyze their life and often discover a need to reconstitute their purpose. Some of the advantageous of this self-learning experience is that it is virtually free, undeterred by age, not a zero sum game, surprising, exciting and makes each discovery a new eureka moment. The self-learning experience I am suggesting is similar to any other hobby one might undertake; interest will ebb and flow. In my case this was a hobby that I continually came back to after other hobbies lost appeal.

I suggest for your consideration that if we “Get a life—Get an intellectual life” we very well might gain substantially in self-worth and, perhaps, community-worth.

As a popular saying goes ‘there is a season for all things’. We might consider that spring and summer are times for gathering knowledge, maximizing production and consumption, and increasing net-worth; while fall and winter are seasons for gathering understanding, creating wisdom and increasing self-worth.

I have been trying to encourage adults, who in general consider education as a matter only for young people, to give this idea of self-learning a try. It seems to be human nature to do a turtle (close the mind) when encountering a new and unorthodox idea. Generally we seem to need for an idea to face us many times before we can consider it seriously. A common method for brushing aside this idea is to think ‘I’ve been there and done that’, i.e. ‘I have read and been a self-learner all my life’.

It is unlikely that you will encounter this unorthodox suggestion ever again. You must act on this occasion or never act. The first thing is to make a change in attitude about just what is the nature of education. Then one must face the world with a critical outlook. A number of attitude changes are required as a first step. All parents, I guess, recognize the problems inherent in attitude adjustment. We just have to focus that knowledge upon our self as the object needing an attitude adjustment rather than our child.

Another often heard response is that “you are preaching to the choir”. If you conclude that this is an old familiar tune then I have failed to make clear my suggestion. I recall a story circulating many years ago when the Catholic Church was undergoing substantial changes. Catholics where no longer using Latin in the mass, they were no longer required to abstain from meat on Friday and many other changes. The story goes that one lady was complaining about all these changes and she said, “with all these changes the only thing one will need to do to be a good Catholic is love thy neighbor”.

I am not suggesting a stroll in the park on a Sunday afternoon. I am suggesting a ‘Lewis and Clark Expedition’. I am suggesting the intellectual equivalent of crossing the Mississippi and heading West across unexplored intellectual territory with the intellectual equivalent of the Pacific Ocean as a destination.

[Stark]

Okay, dude, dude. When everyone is bitching and threatening to ban you because you're a cut'n'paste cowboy, LEAVING THE HEADING (knowing and understanding lol)in your cut'n'paste job kinda gives away that you didn't type that huge screed.

Not just pretenious: stupid as well.

[Starglider]

You know if you'd asked 'what actions can be taken to get people interested in reading and lifelong learning, and how can we restore respect for learning and reasoning abilities?' this might've been a worthwhile thread. But no, you said 'blah blah people suck blah blah decline of civilisation blah blah something must be done!' then proceeded to paste in verbiage worthless by even the low standards of self-help tracts.

I seek disinterested knowledge because I wish to understand. The object of understanding is determined by questions guiding my quest. These guiding questions originate as a result of the force inherent in my curiosity and imagination.

Based on personal experience with many, many cranks and ignorant newbies trying to 'understand cognition': 'because I wish to understand' is worse than useless if 'understand' means 'memorise or invent cute, vapid and meaningless answers to complex questions, then pat myself on the back for being so enlightened' rather than 'develop the ability to make useful predictions, build useful artefacts and generally solve real problems'.

Question: Who made you?
Answer: God made me.
Question: Why did God make you?
Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

Oh and he's a fundy moron as well, presumably the pretentious type responsible for the mountains of abstract theological bullshit associated with Christianity, though since he's ripping off the text maybe he can only aspire to that refined grade of idiocy.

When everyone is bitching and threatening to ban you because you're a cut'n'paste cowboy, LEAVING THE HEADING (knowing and understanding lol)in your cut'n'paste job kinda gives away that you didn't type that huge screed.

Pastes random spam that barely corresponds to the topic, doesn't respond to questions or criticisms other than with occasional Eliza-like 'username: generic platitude' one-liners. Surely 'fails the Turing test' is grounds for bannination?

[K. A. Pital]

Sorry, man, but this is just quote-spam and nothing else.

[Spoonist]

->Coberst
This is just plain copy paste from earlier discussions you have had at other boards where you didn't make a contribution either. You haven't even refined your text. Either make sentient responses to our posts or leave and be redundant somewhere else. Please also explain your behavior of posting the same rants as you have done for the last years to different forum sites. I'm quite unable to grasp your thought process since you claim that you want to learn new stuff but you are obviously not willing to discuss your reasoning with others, in my experience booksmarts isn't exactly the same thing as knowledge...

->Everyone else
By the power of google-fu invested in me by my forefathers I give the members of the board......

Original topic copy&paste

Response copy&paste

Previous topic copy&paste

[SilverWingedSeraph]

Wow, I need to copy-paste a few paragraphs out off some pop-psychology book with no context what-so-ever. Apparently that's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

[coberst]

Based on personal experience with many, many cranks and ignorant newbies trying to 'understand cognition': 'because I wish to understand' is worse than useless if 'understand' means 'memorise or invent cute, vapid and meaningless answers to complex questions, then pat myself on the back for being so enlightened' rather than 'develop the ability to make useful predictions, build useful artefacts and generally solve real problems'.

Question: Who made you?
Answer: God made me.
Question: Why did God make you?
Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

Oh and he's a fundy moron as well, presumably the pretentious type responsible for the mountains of abstract theological bullshit associated with Christianity, though since he's ripping off the text maybe he can only aspire to that refined grade of idiocy.

When everyone is bitching and threatening to ban you because you're a cut'n'paste cowboy, LEAVING THE HEADING (knowing and understanding lol)in your cut'n'paste job kinda gives away that you didn't type that huge screed.

[coberst]

Based on personal experience with many, many cranks and ignorant newbies trying to 'understand cognition': 'because I wish to understand' is worse than useless if 'understand' means 'memorise or invent cute, vapid and meaningless answers to complex questions, then pat myself on the back for being so enlightened' rather than 'develop the ability to make useful predictions, build useful artefacts and generally solve real problems'.

Question: Who made you?
Answer: God made me.
Question: Why did God make you?
Answer: God made me to know Him, to love Him and to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him in the next.

Oh and he's a fundy moron as well, presumably the pretentious type responsible for the mountains of abstract theological bullshit associated with Christianity, though since he's ripping off the text maybe he can only aspire to that refined grade of idiocy.

When everyone is bitching and threatening to ban you because you're a cut'n'paste cowboy, LEAVING THE HEADING (knowing and understanding lol)in your cut'n'paste job kinda gives away that you didn't type that huge screed.

I failed to place my response in the previous post.

I generally do not respond directly to insults because it only leads to mud wresteling and I am too old to enjoy those forms of fun.

I imagine comprehension to be a hierarchy, resembling a pyramid, with awareness at the base followed by consciousness (awareness plus attention), succeeded by knowing, with understanding at the pinnacle.

I am a retired engineer and my experience in the natural sciences leads me to conclude that these natural sciences are far more concerned with knowing than with understanding.

Understanding is a long step beyond knowing and most often knowing provides the results that technology demands. Technology, I think, does not want understanding because understanding is inefficient and generally not required. The natural scientists, with their paradigms, are puzzle solvers. Puzzles require ingenuity but seldom understanding. However, understanding is essential when dealing with matters of relationships between humans.

I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding.

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

Understanding an intellectual matter must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

I think of understanding as being a creation of meaning by the thinker. As one attempts to understand something that person will construct through imagination a model--like a papier-mâché--of the meaning. Like an artist painting her understanding of something. As time goes by the model takes on what the person understands about that which is studied. The model is very subjective and you and I may study something for some time and we both have learned to understand it but if it were possible to project an image of our model they would be unidentifiable perhaps by the other. Knowledge has a universal quality but not understanding.

[Stark]

You know, you really should have read the fucking rules. If you refuse to answer a point because of some bullshit harsh language objection, you're fucking GONE.

Thanks for another huge post full of garbage, though. Starting every sentence with the word 'I' probably gives us a great insight into your personality.

The most amusing part is that you're so stupid you can't *discuss* any of these ideas. You're like those crazy people on the street you yell at you about their pet conspiracy/religion/etc - nobody is going to take you seriously unless you can a) talk like a normal person, not a pretentious, vacuous, cut'n'paste cowbay and b) actually DISCUSS anything. Responding to posts with another stream of bullshit it *not* discussion.

[coberst]

You know, you really should have read the fucking rules. If you refuse to answer a point because of some bullshit harsh language objection, you're fucking GONE.

Thanks for another huge post full of garbage, though. Starting every sentence with the word 'I' probably gives us a great insight into your personality.

The most amusing part is that you're so stupid you can't *discuss* any of these ideas. You're like those crazy people on the street you yell at you about their pet conspiracy/religion/etc - nobody is going to take you seriously unless you can a) talk like a normal person, not a pretentious, vacuous, cut'n'paste cowbay and b) actually DISCUSS anything. Responding to posts with another stream of bullshit it *not* discussion.

You may be the most foul mouthed moderator I have ever encountered.

[Stark]

Ah, that just made my day. I'm not a moderator. This forum has rules - which you didn't bother to read - and ignoring arguments or posts because their language offends you is a bannable offence.

If you escape your ban poll running in the Senate, read these - the goddamn rules you were supposed to read before you started posting but were to fucking stupid to notice.

Frankly, since you've been here for days and never let up your bullshit 'post meaningless cut'n'paste then ignore everyone' act, I doubt you'll need to worry about reading the rules. Why did you bother signing up, since you were clearly looking for some kind of circlejerk, faux-intellectual coffeeshop discussion?

[Rye]

I vote for removing Stark's moderator privileges!

I'm personally incredibly bored by notions of asking whether it's possible to understand or know things. By asking that question, aren't you already conceding that you understand the words and the existence of others that will comprehend the question? Given that, you know, why bother? Heh.

Stark (who is actually an admin, not a moderator) is right, though. Refusing to address arguments because they've been harshly worded is a good way to end up banned, resembling more a meal made of carrot and bollock than the hearty meat feast we all strive to be.

[Stark]

Stark (who is actually an admin, not a moderator) is right, though.

Where do people get the idea I'm important? I'm just a regular poster! I don't have Board Influence, I swear it!

[Spoonist]

...[snip]I imagine comprehension to be a hierarchy, resembling a pyramid, with awareness at the base followed by consciousness (awareness plus attention), succeeded by knowing, with understanding at the pinnacle.
...[snip]

More copy paste:
From here
and here
Either we are dealing with a research project or Coberst has some kind of disability (and I mean that in a nice way not an insult) that makes him use response templates that someone else have helped him with spelling and grammar.

[Rye]

Actually, if I were doing an AI project, a bot of some sort that posted AI jargon and responded badly to being insulted, etc, would be a hilariously self-referential project to do.

[Bounty]

The response to Starglider above was courtesy of scissors and Pritt sticks.