Since you asked...
Your threads typically follow a certain structure. You imply (explicitly or implicitly) that experts in philosophy (typically) are dolts who have failed to examine or perhaps even notice important issue X, which you, Speakpigeon claim to be or to have been investigating.
Please, don't make stuff up.
I never claimed to have investigated anything.
You ask your questions and post your polls, ostensibly seeking the opinions of the people on this forum on the topic, but apparently you do this only so that you can score ego points for yourself by countering and dismissing the responses you get, on the basis that they don't follow a pre-determined script that you have in mind for the conversation.
No, I certainly don't have any "pre-determined script".
I do expect people to post relevant comments, which is only proper.
Most of the time, though, they don't and you are a case in point.
When they do, I reply in detail, and this is very easy to verify.
You operate on the assumption that you are the expert who already has the solutions to the conundrums he poses.
This is absurd.
Most of my threads have been polls. Hardly the thing you'd do if you thought yourself the expert. Why do a poll if you think you're the expert?
The impression I get is that the appearance that you give about wanting to explore a topic with the people here is really little more than a facade to cover an exercise involving the self-satisfaction of your own ego, carried out at the expense of others against whom you consider yourself to be scoring rhetorical points. Your modus operandi comes across as one of setting calculated traps for unwary punters to fall into, thus providing you an opportunity to pat yourself on the back and gloat at the incompetency of those who you assume are beneath you.
At least this is the impression you have. So... you come across as an insecure old man put off by the first appearance of a display of confidence.
This could be easily solved. Try to post relevant comments and you'll get considerate replies.
(...) but rather to assert your superior knowledge of whatever topic it is that you're supposedly asking questions about.
(...) We never get to hear the many learned insights that you've come to in your extensive studies of the topics you bring us for discussion.
(...) never actually making a substantive contribution of your own.
You're contradicting yourself.
I can't possibly both be motivated to
assert my superior knowledge while at the same time refraining from sharing
my learned insights or making any
substantive contribution of my own!
Please, make up your mind. I can't address contradictory claims.
You appear content to criticise the thoughts of others while never actually making a substantive contribution of your own. What that suggests to me is either that you don't really have the original ideas you want us to think you have, or else you're afraid to test your own ideas in a public forum like this one. Another possibility is that your primary focus of interest in the threads you start here lies not in the thread topic so much as in putting on a performance involving a clash of egos or a metaphorical penis-waving display.
These are just my impressions and opinions. I could, of course, be completely off base. You might turn out to be a really lovely, genuine guy who has nothing but the purest intentions, once we get to know the real you. Anything is possible.
There are other possibilities.
One is that I post polls and questions because I want to understand what people think about the topics I'm raising.
Unfortunately, most of the time, I only get irrelevant comments because most of the time you don't understand the question.
Most of you don't in fact even try to understand my questions. You come to it with massive preconceptions and read into the question something which isn't there.
This is just a waste of time. You're not here to debate anything. You're here to spend time going nowhere. This is the pub. You speak without thinking about what you say. You just say it, mindlessly.
EB
