Re: Terrible!

gekko wrote: 
Skip this part.  It's only an attribution telling you that Bob (this
one) <Bob@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in <11hh9jqtbk7oi51@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

gekko wrote:

w.d.greene> <bil64@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

"chris_tine49@xxxxxxxxxxx" wrote:


why CAN'T we talk respectfully and soulfully if we want about
how we live our lives in a society that we consider to be
both advanced and democratic?

And why this relentless diversion into things of no
consequence?



Excellent questions.  Christine.  I fear the answers.  Or,
rather, I fear that the answers will be precisely as shallow
and malicious as the material that spurred these questions.  I
fear that the answer will be something flippant along the lines
of, "it's all a meaningless game."

One cannot deny the meaningless.  Placed on an existential
plane, what do we do that is not meaningless and ultimately
futile?  Yet, even within that bleak context, certainly the
random ramblings on usenet qualify as especially devoid of
broader significance.

But could not the same be said regarding the ramblings recorded
in ink stains on any given piece of literature?  No, I'm of
course not equating usenet with literature (I will not be
playing the part of Bill Palmer this evening), but is this all
shallow and pointless specifically because we have chosen it to
be?

Or if we have not so chosen, have we allowed others to chose
for us?  And why do we accept this?  Are we not writers and by
claiming that mantle at least occasionally responsible for
communicating with intent, with meaning, with something more
than the banal excuse that everything here is supposed to be,
as you say, without soul?

I don't have the answers.  But thank you, Christine, for
initiating this line of thinking for me with your provocative
questions.




I ruminated, not in the cow-al sense, mind, on stuff somewhat
related to this.

The stuff going on in NO -- the looting, raping, sniper-fire. The
 monsterous, animalistic senseless lawlessness that is being
reported.

I find it vaguely odd that peeps around here are happily bashing
some winkiless old fart who types out sarcastic commentary on a
Uselessnet newsgroup, but they have *nothing* to say about the
far more monsterous activities going on elsewhere.



Not odd at all, IMO. Only so many hours, only so many
possibilities. Only so many issues to deal with at a time.



Nevertheless, I find it vaguely odd.  Mostly because people seem to
convince themselves that dealing with the "issue" of a Usenet poster
who torques you off is somehow meaningful, but dealing with the issue
of the horrors real people are undergoing is not.  Mainly because of
the things I mention below -- you can't control the former.  You
_can_ exercise some control in the latter.

I think it comes down to control and frustration. 


One reasonable premise. Certainly not all of it or even most of
what impels people.

When it comes to Usenet rants, I'd say it's more that than anything else.

But that's where your mileage takes you. Given the impossibility of any control, it can't be too much of a motivation.

You're limiting it to "Usenet rants" while I'm looking at it in wider terms. But rants or rationality, it's all of a piece; all of the same value. And that value is where we disagree at base.

You can't control the rapists in NOLA.  You can't really control
the monkey-faced President and his arrogance and vision.  You
can't control the winds of Katrina, the softness of the levees,
the murky floodwaters.  You can't control these things.

And that frustrates you. Us. 

And people address those things. Write about them. Talk about them.

The topic had to do with conversations that are rancorous, yes?
These conversations tend to be more about bashing other posters than
about real issues, yes?

I see them often converging. I truly see Geno's behavior as essentially evil and have said so. That's, to me, a real issue.

The many, many discussions about what I like to call "real issues" are not rancorous.

To be suer. And many disagreements are not disagreeable. But real issues are very often rancorous because they assume importances in people's lives. Politics is about real issues. Governmental policy questions are real issues. Social aspects of governmental functions are real issues.

Many react by railing, then, against those things they can't
control. There are _meaningful_ things out there, but we are
mostly powerless where they are concerned.  We turn, then, to the
things that we feel we _can_ control.

A bored old coot gets his jollies by posting deliberately
outrageous crap  -- railing against the things he cannot control
-- on a newsgroup. Those who disagree with him get all hot and
bothered by it and decide Something Must Be Done About This Evil
Lunatic and they write wordy, belligerent screeds.

Task completed, they are satisfied, and wander off to cook up
some lamb tortuga in caper sauce, or wotever, because they've
done what they could.  They've _controlled_ something.  They've
shown artful *distaste*, and watched their cheerleaders agree
with them.

And this somehow matters, right?

It can.

I very very very much disagree.

And here is where it finally rests. This is where we diverge to apparently irreconcilable differences.

Like more taste, less farts, or whatever those beer commercials said.


And when all is said and done, it's exactly what an op-ed page is
about. Exactly what writing a column is about. Exactly what talking
 on radio and TV is about. Exactly what editorials in the various
media are about.


Yes, but this is Usenet.  The words here are meaningless.  That's the
point.

The point I was making is that the same critique can be levelled at that whole list above. And it's every bit as valid and invalid in each and all cases. They're all of a type, and this Usenet is an absolutely new phenomenon where *everybody* can sound off rather than just a few people, confined as they are by the linearity of newspaper publishing or broadcasting.

It's more like the broadsides of Colonial America that were essentially self-published opinion pieces. They ranged form the downright fraudulent and scurrilous to the considered and deeply reasoned. Think Thomas Paine as one of the heavies.

In and of themselves, they don't directly get anything done,
agreed. They aren't the actors, but they can be galvanizers and
catalysts for actions.

They can. Uselessnet posts *generally* are not. The ones that are, though, are not the ones that deal with the issues. They're the
ones that offer advice to people asking for it. I'm thinking of PJ
and Alan Hope.

I understand what you're saying here, but we can't know the effects that posts are having on the scattered readers. We see no evidence on a daily basis pro or con the content. But the fact that subscribers post and post again must mean that some consistent benefit is accruing, and it can't all be handed to the "useful" ones.

They can get people to consider different pictures or different parts of the came picture. They are thoughts which can be
precursors to action. Stimulants.

Yet, not on Uselessnet. 

We don't know the essential truth of that. We can only have opinions.

This is why Uselessness is a game, of course. The JD swilling arrogant wrinklie, lacking any real form of control, did his
part. The snotty, arrogant, frycook wrinklie who reacted to the
JD swiller, also lacking any real form of control, did his part.

And all over Uselessnet, people nodded in vapid agreement with either, or both. Or formed other opinions and added their
voices.

And none of it meant diddly.

Depends on definitions. Depends on what sorts of fallout defines "diddly." We all offer opinions on things to each other all day
long. We all have buttons that trigger actions of one kind or
another. We all have subjects that are of value to us and that,
poked, prompt reaction. 

Talking about the contentious thingers.  You know.  Like french
fries.

But not only. The range of interaction is far broader than just a few isolated incidents you're trying to poke me with here. It's my assertion that there are benefits that don't directly pay out from the straightforward transmission of some previously unknown data.

Seeing Hope's throwaway wit is a daily lesson in any number of high quality writing elements. The example, not the specific instruction. Reading RJM's stuff is to see a masterful way of stringing words likely to effortlessly outclass all but the very best among us. Reading Haddad's daily inanity with its crippled logic, stunted premises and bull*** information is equally instructive. There are some reasonably competent stringers of words here and some profound thudders and all provide lessons to emulate or avoid.

If you're saying that the world isn't changed by that one example,
then, of course, you're correct. But then how many gestures ever
reach that position? The ferment of divergent opinions and
different behaviors offers pondering space, consideration room.
Seeing another's opinion can prompt the formulation of one's own
with fuller understanding. It can also infuriate if buttons are
pushed. It can be an epiphany if wandering into untilled areas. It
can harden one's ideas if seemingly unreasonable. And it can hold
up a looking glass to the honest ones.

No one's opinions were better informed. 

Maybe yes, maybe no. Judgement.

No one's minds were changed 

for good or ill.  No one saved a baby in NOLA.  No one protected
a 13 year old girl from being raped in some sweaty room in the
convention center.  With all this, no one stopped the levee from
being breeched, no one stopped the storm surge, and no one
prevented Casey Sheehan from dying. No one here convinced the
Iraqi PTBs that making religion an integral part of their
government is a dangerous path to trod, and no one here, by
writing their opinion, saved the snail darter. No president is
being removed from office, no opportunistic Venezuelan Leftist
Official is being assassinated, and no bulbous-brained
anti-Christian televangelist is being struck by lightning.


These are too global a series of criteria for judging written
words, almost no matter the venue. These weren't the goals of the
writing.


I maintain the goals of the writing was to vent one's spleen and feel
that one has done what one needed to do to Right A Wrong.

But it ended up meaning nothing.

Sound and fury.

To you. But even venting has it's place and its value. You can't judge it only on its tone. What was said actually has to be better than how it was said. And if the what has merit, then it's already justified, and if, further, it brings a new fact or a new view to someone, than it fulfills the same function as those more august examples in major media above.

They simply exercised the one teensy bit of control they had, and
 satisfied whatever personal urge needed satisfying. They
expressed an opinion.

Big. Fucking. Deal.

Actually, it is a big deal.

To the writer. 

Of course. At least. But it goes beyond that if the premises above hold.

The background being that we can express them at all. It's also big
because it can generate responses that deal with the substance of
it, for better or worse. It informs the person offering it and the
importances they hold. It's all information and all grist for
greater understanding. My opinion is that seeing more information
from and about people is useful and, if really scrutinized, can
show the subtle hues of their personalities. Can show them as the more round, complex person than first glances offer. For me, that's
a good thing. 

Well, but that's only as good as it goes.  You cannot guarantee that
whatever person you're reading has the same motivation you have.  You
cannot accurately read between their lines.  You can only make a
guess.

I don't think I buy that whole package. The congruence of motivation between some writer and you is irrelevant; if you're reading someone else's words, theirs is the one that matters in the moment. As for between the lines, a well written piece offers some glimpses, where reasonable to do so, but it's still not necessary for comprehension.

This view of yours stated here applies to everything written. We can never assume that the writer has the same motivations. And we can never assume to know *exactly* what that writer meant. Transmission of information is always approximate with maybe mathematics being an exception. Words aren't solid enough to even consider completeness of information transfer.

I maintain it's neither a good nor bad thing, btw. It only is. It's just what we humans _have_ to do.

I guess the point is that you make your judgement, and react
according to it.


As with *every* verbal communication, all the time.

But don't you feel just a little bit embarrassed when you get caught overreacting to something that's ultimately meaningless?

I don't agree that it's ultimately meaningless. So the premise doesn't offer logical sense. The judgement about overreaction is in the prejudices of the beholder.

I could ask the same of you in all those "Joshers is stuuuupid" posts

It's interesting.  It's entertaining.  It's meaningless. It is
_all_ a relentless diversion into things of no consequence. Words
_can_ have power, but the power they hold is highly dependant on
things you won't find in Uselessnet.

Expressing an opinion on Uselessnet is inconsequential.

As opinions go, this is one. But it's only one way to see things. 

Tell me, Bob.  Do you imagine this is the only way I see things?

Just curious.

I don't know. It's the only one you've expressed. In the absence of other information, it's what I have to work with.

Getting out and doing something is something of consequence,
however. Taking those words and ideas that are wasted here, and
putting them wehre they CAN matter -- even as poor Cindy Sheehan
started doing before she started letting others put their words
into her mouth -- that is a thing of consequence.

But doing. Doing is the biggest thing of consequence. 

But doing online takes many forms. One of them is expressing
opinions.

On Usenet, it's of no consequence. My point. 

Your opinion. It can't be proven or disproven.

Another can be delivering facts. Another can be explication of the
 complex is simpler terms. Another can be slashing at fakery. Or
pointing out the flaws in another, sincere opinion. Or adding to a
statement of viewpoint that has merit for the the particular
reader. It can be positive, negative, neutral or some combination.
And it's all information, too much of which cain't be.


Uselessnet?  It is a game.  It's television.  It's comic books.
It's video games.  It.  Has.  No.  Real.  Meaning.



It has the meaning that any other mass medium has. And the
limitations and one advantage. This one is, in its fashion,
interactive and permits a volleying format of questions and
answers. The tone can range from volcanic destruction to
augmentative, useful information transfers and all point between.
It can be passing information back and forth or not.

But the picture of it as something with no real meaning is one
view, and one that I think sells it short. Part of the clash here
is that difference of sense of value, of utility. One says useless
and merely playtime; the other says place for truths and
feelings... Each sees the other view as flawed and deals
accordingly.

Obviously, Chris.tine and Bil and I see it as a place to push
around personal notions and explore what we see as important.

No, you also see it as a place to play games of whatever sort, Bob.

Don't make it so vague as to imply the same sorts of things that I've been condemning. I don't do those things - Geno kinds of things - because I think they're wrong.

Past comments from you, e-mails from you, your troll-baiting, etc.
all prove that.

Prove that I play online? Of course I do and I've said so and demonstrated it often enough. But the nature of the play is one of the issues here.

You and Geno see it as a place to play games of whatever sort
because it has no meaning. And we all venture into the other realm
on occasion, because it's not 100% anything.

So it goes.

No, seriously...

One of the wisest things you've said, Bob. 

Thank you. Too true.

No, seriously...

Pastorio
.

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