[MD] Greetings and Happy New Year

[John Carl]

Hi Ian,



On Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 12:13 PM, Ian Glendinning
<ian.glendinning at gmail.com>wrote:

> John, when you say "LS" you mean the Google Group called Lila Squad or
> another site (one of many blog & forum attempts with the Lila Squad
> name) ?
>
>
j:

Yes, I meant the LilaSquad group that Mary initiated.  It's a small
discussion group.




> So far as I can see the LSGG is same old same old - Bo calling
> everyone SOMists and Platt egging him on with anti-democratic rants ?
>


j:    Well Platt posts rarely.  Bo is quite prolific on his own without
need for much egging.  But I find
trying to argue with him has been jolly good exercise.  I can't bench press
300 pounds either, but trying does build muscle.


i:


> That plus resurrection of 200 year old philosophic problems long since
> solved, and a lot of unfiltered spam.


j:  you must mean tim there.  I don't think he believes in speaking plainly
but it's not really "spam" so much as unfiltered craziness.



> (Surprisingly I've tried to
> r-engage Bo a few times in the last couple of years, but all he ever
> does is hurl ignorant insults.)
>
> Anyway, incidentally after posting on only a handful of threads on MD
> in the last couple of years I too was heard to remark in December on
> seeing a Marsha conversation with Dan that "it was great to be
> reminded of why I remained subscribed to MD".
>
> Sadly very few people on any related discussion site actually listen
> to any post 1980's contributions. Each finds a refuge on which to
> argue their own points on their own terms - as if antagonism was the
> point of the exercise.Twas ever thus.
>
>
j:  well, if so then that itself is an interesting phenom.  But there is so
little conversation to be had about Pirsig and his ideas,
anywhere in the world, that the fact that a group of people do so is a rare
and valuable treat and we all ought to be
grateful rather than antagonistic.

i:


> I've concluded editorially managed channels are the only hope for
> constructive progress, and there are plenty of those around.
> Ian
>
>

An old friend of mine, Steve Marquis (who used to belong to MD) is the
moderator for a discussion group on stoicism and he says its getting more
and more discouraging - the kind of reasoning that passes for sound these
days.  Tsk tsk.  We are starting to sound like old curmudgeons - kids these
days don't care about reason, they use logic to justify
socially-transferred opinions...  but as you say, twas ever thus.

John the curmudgeon