The thing about this rant, thinking back on it now, is that it leads me to question my own purposes for participating in such.
Over the years, first at PIC and then 3DHS, what I've gotten from participation has changed more times than I realized. I originally found PIC because I was so interested in what people were saying in the months after 9.11 as well as hoping to present the ideas of what has become known as the RBE. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my first post was about it. I think I posted the link for the Venus Project and asked people to take a look and I asked, "Why can't that work?"
Of course, I got lots and lots of "reasons". The RBE became the only reason I was there and then I started posting my opinions and debating other subjects when I would get frustrated by the repeated discussions of how the RBE wouldn't work because robots would never be able to pick strawberries.
I was pretty naive back then. The most assessment of how I reacted can truly be described as "stunned". It boggled my mind that people wouldn't think that the RBE might be the way we, as a nation, might want to take the momentum of unity following 9.11 and change the world for the better. Instead, as everyone knows, we as a nation under the "leadership" of power-mad cultists and their moron figurehead, threw that unity into the gutter, wasting it on an empirical vision of elitist, demented and naive ideologues.
PIC closed shortly after I joined due to Yahoo Clubs becoming unworkable. (It always confused me how conservatives were so viscerally against paying for the clubs or putting up with ads since it was just normal capitalism.) BT set this place up and the people at the new MSN club were just kind of annoying. If memory serves, there was a lot of back room politicking about who would go with whom and so forth, but I don't really remember particulars. BT had always at least been fair and rarely a bastard, so here is where I came.
For the most part, my self-determined role was that of provocateur. It was natural instinct and I enjoyed it. I would say 95% of the time, I actually believed in everything I was typing but there were a few occasions I just assumed a position in a debate because someone who was on the other side was being a dick or I simply didn't like that member. Those who have been here a long time, may remember the infamous flame war that BSB and I had over a pic he posted of a dead soldier on a snowy field. My initial response to that pic was sort of kneejerk and BSB had a way of personally attacking me when we'd enter into anything resembling a debate and it was initially just picking a fight with him. Then he said something that I can't recall right now, and I just hardened on it and flamed him which I eventually wound up apologizing for. Seriously, those were the good old days.
That's how it was for a long time, but then, as it usually does, familiarity started breeding contempt like bunnies. As we all got to know each other like a close circle of friends, assumptions were the norm. It seemed that the debates were more like arguments at the dinner table with relatives at Thanksgiving. Often times, there would have to be a third party jumping in to separate two members in the middle of a feud. There were crackdowns by the management and I knew the my bomb-throwing days were over. I found out that I didn't mind getting in line when it was with people who, though I disagreed with politically, I usually respected and felt that I was learning with and from.
And that was what I felt my reason was for being here then. It was a club and it was fun most of the time and I had gotten better at writing and learned a lot about debate, politics, history, human relations, many subjects. And that's lasted a short while.
Of late though, I've found myself more contrarian than I liked to be. 3DHS kind of annoys me at time because I think that if I post something, it will simply be a to and fro with those on the right. My image of those on the right is that of a rock star who has passed his peak. They are Elvis walking down the Sunset Strip in his cape, with his cane and wondering what the hell is everyone looking at. They still think they're the number one star in the world (and are, sort of, but they have absolutely zero street cred). And when Priscilla says to them that maybe they ought to cut their hair like that kid Ricky Nelson, they strike out at her and tell her that those kids have been emulating them for year! And now she wants them to follow them?!? "They're the King, baby!"
And what they don't understand is that if they don't get off the drugs/koolaid and take that second billing on that remake of A STAR IS BORN, they're going to be considered a joke forever and die an metaphorical and indignant death.
But for now, they're just convinced that they just have to make another record and all the kids will buy it and show up at the stadiums. But that ain't so.
But I didn't start this post to curse their darkness. I'd rather light a candle. It may come to naught but I'd like to propose a new kind of thread. We've tried other stuff like this before, but let's tweak it one more time. I'd really be interested in finding answers to the issues that divide us as a nation. I'd really like to see a thread end with a post that sums up the discussion and what ideas were put forth by whom and what the final outcome and resolution was. At least one. Just one post where we put forth a problem as a community and come to a compromise that would be something that we could look at with pride.
Even if it is a simple issue within the forum, it would be worthwhile to me to find myself thinking, "Wow, that's not really exactly how I would fix that but at least we can all live with it."
The reason I put this forward again is because too often than not, I find myself just thinking, "Why the fuck do I care? They're never going to change or admit either defeat or that they would be willing to live with answer that doesn't exactly fit their ideas of how the world works." The forum is a wonderful entertainment and informational fount. I can't say that I would ever want to "take a break". It was just be a change that I think could attract new people to the site and coax more lurkers to jump in.
Now, it may come to mind that some people might want to reply to this and knock it or ask snarky questions and I'm just not interested in that, in this thread now. I can only promise to be open to discussion and compromise if I can get assurances from any who might participate. It never works to make rules for these threads because someone eventually feels the rules are stacked against them somehow. I will only offer my assurances and hope for the best.
Any takers?
