Why James R is a useless moderator

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arfa brane

call me arf
Valued Senior Member
James R is telling you and me a load of bollocks.

James R said:
The thread got off track because arfa brane insists on following me around the forum to try to continue or rehash an old argument we had about whether energy is a number. Apparently, arfa has now progressed to the point where he is unwilling to admit to any distinction at all between physical objects and mental concepts, . . .
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This from the person who insists that charge and mass are concepts. When I point out that Feynman also says "nobody knows what energy is", which contradicts "I know what energy is, it's a number", James gets all shitty.

James R has repeatedly insisted he knows what A is. He knows what a distance is. For some reason, not explained, distance is not a physical object: viz.
James R said:
The "distance" being measured is the space between those two ends. That space is not an object. You can't bottle space.

Do you have a bottle of distance you can show me?
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So distance must be a concept, because you can't put distance in a bottle. That is ridiculous and a completely useless argument to make. To go to the trouble of making . . . even.

It's ridiculous because there is no rule in physics saying "you must be able to put physical objects in bottles". Where are the books that say anything like that? Who lectures physics students and tells them the "bottle rule"? (apart from wannabes like James?)

A distance is already 'contained' anyway. It doesn't need a bottle to be in because it's 'in' the dimensions of real objects, such as planets, or humans.

James' "bottle argument" falls over at the first hurdle. It's useless, it's facile. It's probably demented.

James R is not, and never has been, a physics moderator. He doesn't really understand physics, apparently. Or maybe it's all an act.
 
Starting a thread about a person's standard of moderation, but using examples unrelated to that standard of moderation per se, also says more about him than JamesR.
 
arfa brane said:
This from the person who insists that charge and mass are concepts.
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Saying, "This from the person who insists that charge and mass are concepts" is like saying, "This from a person who doesn't believe in unicorns". It doesn't do much for your credibility.
 
Sarkus said:
Starting a thread about a person's standard of moderation, but using examples unrelated to that standard of moderation per se, also says more about him than JamesR.
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The "examples" say a lot about James way of thinking, which appears to be quite rigid. He can't get past bottles for some reason.
He is a useless moderator. There it is, I said it again.
 
sideshowbob said:
Saying, "This from the person who insists that charge and mass are concepts" is like saying, "This from a person who doesn't believe in unicorns". It doesn't do much for your credibility.
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You agree that charge and mass are concepts? Otherwise I really don't get what you meant to say; it makes no sense.
 
arfa brane said:
The "examples" say a lot about James way of thinking, which appears to be quite rigid. He can't get past bottles for some reason.
He is a useless moderator. There it is, I said it again.
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Yet you still fail to give an example of what you deem to be his "useless" moderation. Go figure.
 
Sarkus said:
Yet you still fail to give an example of what you deem to be his "useless" moderation. Go figure.
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Apparently simplicity remains (so far) a futile or ineffectual mode for communicating this precise concern. So purely to get a secondary option out of the way (i.e., that it can be said 'twas tried)...

Some co-administrator act or a collection of such acts (conceivable as _X_'s managerial style?) needs to finally be referenced, that truly is dependent upon _X_'s higher slot in the power structure.

Otherwise, contrary to its title, this topic actually seems to pertain to characteristics of James R as "just another poster/member", rather than his role or function as a moderator.
 
James isn't even the moderator who closed that thread, it was Tiassa. I didn't notice James moderating Arfa there, he just seemed to be posting like a regular member. Once it was closed, he offered Arf to have the last word there, too. Arf could have sent a PM to him or any other mod and they would have posted it, assuming it was civil.
 
arfa brane said:
You agree that charge and mass are concepts?
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Of course. Who would disagree? A lot of things are concepts. Ice cream is a concept. Love is a concept. Some concepts are more tightly linked to the real (physical) world than others.
arfa brane said:
Otherwise I really don't get what you meant to say;
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I mean to say that if you scoff at charge and mass being concepts, you have no credibility.
arfa brane said:
it makes no sense.
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Maybe it makes sense to the people who aren't disagreeing with me.
 
sideshowbob said:
Of course. Who would disagree?
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I would. I disagree with any statement that says what mass or charge are.

On the other hand, what mass or charge do is a different logic altogether. Why is that?
sideshowbob said:
A lot of things are concepts. Ice cream is a concept.
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What about ice cream that melts, is melting ice cream a concept? If you watch ice cream melting, is watching it a concept? Like, having your eyes open or closed is . . . a concept?
 
To all the "contributors" here, who think I haven't said anything about James R's actual moderation.
I'm saying he is useless at physics, which should disqualify him from moderating the subject.

Geddit?
 
arfa brane said:
What about ice cream that melts, is melting ice cream a concept? If you watch ice cream melting, is watching it a concept? Like, having your eyes open or closed is . . . a concept?
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All of those things are concepts. They also all have a physical reality.

However, the concept of ice cream melting is simply the idea of ice cream melting; it is not actually any ice cream changing phase. There is a difference between a concept (an idea) and the actual thing (the object itself.)
 
If you can put him in a bottle, right?

Lots of things can't be "put in" a bottle. What kind of bottle, anyway? Have you heard of a bottle that's made out of magnetic fields? If I quote a line from Shakespeare, how do I bottle it?

The bottle rule just leads to more questions about the philosophy of bottles, what they are, how do you make one, why you need some kind of bottle in the first place . . .

Which is to say, it leads nowhere any more useful, or useless, than the pink unicorn rule.
 
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billvon said:
There is a difference between a concept (an idea) and the actual thing (the object itself.)
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Really? That's quite an insight.

How do you tell the difference, though? James R tells us the distance between two objects can't go in a bottle. Distance must be a concept, different from "the actual thing". What do you think he means?

Or we're supposed to go with him knowing "far, far more about physics", than I do. Or you do. (?)
 
If one cannot show ,with evidence that James is a bad moderator then the idea that he is remains just a concept


If one can show this to be the case by means of argued evidence then James being a bad moderator is no longer a concept but something close to the real thing.

Conceptually speaking ,this thread is pretty tiresome.(and James seems a good moderator- to me at least)
 
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