I'm reminded of the "foot massage" scene in Pulp fiction.
You know, the one where Vincent manipulates Jules into the realisation that he was completely wrong about the implications of giving a woman a foot massage after claiming it meant nothing.
The culmination of that scene was Jules saying "fuck you" and Vincent merely smiling. Funny, huh.
This was an American movie, and an extremely popular one. But it does appear that it's only funny in a movie, and not in real life. Around some parts, anyway. But that scene remaining in the memory of everyone who has seen and enjoyed that movie is evidence that life isn't as simple and boringly dry as Jules merely saying "Yes, Vincent, you're quite correct, good argument, point well made".
Bloody boring movie that would have made, huh.
Point being, of course, that this kind of humour does exist, it is quite common, and it's readily apparent that the vast majority of responses to me were... well, to me. Not to the topic, or that I'd attempted to open discussion on it.
So who among you actually said anything at all about
"But may I ask, through appropriately gritted teeth: Do you consider this to be a "good" thing?
Moreover... are you interested in rising above it? With all due consideration as to the phrasing of that question, its implications upon pure science, and with all due regard to the observation that scientific method applies to more than just science?"
Not. One.
Most of it was responses to me, in the form of taking the moral high ground with respect to a certain poster, rather than thinking about what I'd actually said.
This site is not merely a collection of threads. It's a spider's web; many threads ostensibly separate from one another actually form parts of a greater whole. So when someone like this Dave character come out and say "with apropos to nothing" I do have a bit of a chuckle. You can pretend that, but that don't make it so.
Simply put, if you can't see the tapestry for the threads, it's you who is actually reducing it to merely those threads.
Ain't no one goin' to no art gallery to see threads. At least, not enough to make that gallery viable. in the long term.
When Iceaura posts something like "Which is all echoes from the walls of a garbage can with few occupants - possibly only one, two at the most. No need to open and investigate - the truck is coming, and it's just a wingnut radio feed anyway." it becomes obvious that while attacking a post based on it's moral grounding is not considered kosher, defending it and creating what is essentially chaff from that very same viewpoint is not only acceptable, it's become officially sanctioned - with respect to many strands of this particular spider web (not a response to Iceaura in particular, in this instance, in spite of the quote).
But, hell. I'm obviously here just to just attack your moral groundings with particular reference to administration methods (partly), and I can be an abrasive son of a bitch anyway, and therefore, given a scientific study which says it is quite normal for you to do so, simply take the negative stance right off the bat.