EPTProposition: Internet forums make you dumber - Page 2
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baal
10541 Posts
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Kaotu
United States986 Posts
On February 22 2005 18:35 MoltkeWarding wrote: On the other hand, I really admire yours. I am taking notes as we speak. -When expressing contempt for a person, always insinuate he is a sexual pervert in your metaphors, because, borrowing from the wisdom of Sigmund Freud, every human motive is essentially sexual. Really impressive that you have subliminally implied that you have an intellectual affinity with fin-de-siecle thinkers. Way to take me down a peg while as you put it, grovelling for other people to jump on your dick because you're a slick intellectual. Though I don't really agree with how he said it, I kind of agree with what he's saying (hot_bid). You seem to be going a little too over the top trying to make your writing sound intellectual. Not that writing proficiently is a bad thing, but I think you are going a bit far. Anyway... I agree and disagree with your post. Though I see your point, and agree to some extent, I think that this problem extends much farther than internet and forums. Really I think TL can be a good place to actually gain some intelligence... For a few reasons. For one, as Klogon stated, it is very diverse here (well, globally anyway), and even though there seems to be certain views that are always prevelant here I find that it is a good place for debate on an extremely wide variety of topics (the debate is not usually intellectual, but I think it helps one to become more well-rounded). Also, the level of flaming on here is actually a positive thing. If you just post random crap and type ROFL all the time you will get flamed and banned. It makes you think twice about your opinions before you just randomly spurt things out. At least it does for me. | ||
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dronebabo
10866 Posts
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CyuntiyuL
Canada1740 Posts
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Klogon
MURICA15980 Posts
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Energies
Australia3225 Posts
 .Edit: 2 edits to fix the grammar of 1 line. <--- GOdly poster here. | ||
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gLyo
United States2410 Posts
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36388 Posts
On February 22 2005 18:35 MoltkeWarding wrote: On the other hand, I really admire yours. I am taking notes as we speak. -When expressing contempt for a person, always insinuate he is a sexual pervert in your metaphors, because, borrowing from the wisdom of Sigmund Freud, every human motive is essentially sexual. Really impressive that you have subliminally implied that you have an intellectual affinity with fin-de-siecle thinkers. Way to take me down a peg while as you put it, grovelling for other people to jump on your dick because you're a slick intellectual. i never said i could write better than you, i never said i was smarter than you, i just said you're trying way too hard to appear smart. judging by you name-dropping every sentence and writing "intellectual" every five words, i'd say my assessment was correct. i didn't subliminally imply anything, i have no idea who or what fin-de-siecle thinkers are. congratulations, you are smarter than me. | ||
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ReBanned
1929 Posts
On February 22 2005 19:00 gLyo wrote: internet forums broaden my world view and diversify my opionions on major issues. however i think i just misspelled about five words, plus no real grammer I can agree with that. The internet really is the best place to get both sides of an issue. It does however, completely destory the grammar and spelling of some people. | ||
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Hot_Bid
Braavos36388 Posts
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pirate cod
810 Posts
On February 22 2005 18:35 MoltkeWarding wrote: On the other hand, I really admire yours. I am taking notes as we speak. -When expressing contempt for a person, always insinuate he is a sexual pervert in your metaphors, because, borrowing from the wisdom of Sigmund Freud, every human motive is essentially sexual. Really impressive that you have subliminally implied that you have an intellectual affinity with fin-de-siecle thinkers. Way to take me down a peg while as you put it, grovelling for other people to jump on your dick because you're a slick intellectual. Congrads on making highschool English AP. It's a shame they don't teach you kids how to write. You'll learn sometime, hang in there buddy. | ||
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Veg
Canada2945 Posts
On February 22 2005 19:05 Hot_Bid wrote: i never said i could write better than you, i never said i was smarter than you, i just said you're trying way too hard to appear smart. judging by you name-dropping every sentence and writing "intellectual" every five words, i'd say my assessment was correct. i didn't subliminally imply anything, i have no idea who or what fin-de-siecle thinkers are. congratulations, you are smarter than me. Why should he care what people think of him? If he wanted to impress people on a bw forum, he'd try something like this  Fin-de-siècle = end of century Also, I agree with what he wrote, but what can you do about it? Think memes, think cultural selection? Hey Moltke, fan of metal gear? edit: siècle typo ~_~ | ||
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Klogon
MURICA15980 Posts
On February 22 2005 19:21 Veg wrote: Why should he care what people think of him? If he wanted to impress people on a bw forum, he'd try something like this hahaha Veg | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On February 22 2005 18:54 Kaotu wrote: Though I don't really agree with how he said it, I kind of agree with what he's saying (hot_bid). You seem to be going a little too over the top trying to make your writing sound intellectual. Not that writing proficiently is a bad thing, but I think you are going a bit far. Anyway... I agree and disagree with your post. Though I see your point, and agree to some extent, I think that this problem extends much farther than internet and forums. Really I think TL can be a good place to actually gain some intelligence... For a few reasons. For one, as Klogon stated, it is very diverse here (well, globally anyway), and even though there seems to be certain views that are always prevelant here I find that it is a good place for debate on an extremely wide variety of topics (the debate is not usually intellectual, but I think it helps one to become more well-rounded). Also, the level of flaming on here is actually a positive thing. If you just post random crap and type ROFL all the time you will get flamed and banned. It makes you think twice about your opinions before you just randomly spurt things out. At least it does for me. You’re free do agree or disagree with hot_bid as you like. Since you can see his point though, can’t you see mine too? I mean his post is so riddled with intellectual vanity it’s too clever to be perceived by anyone but other intellectuals. In all seriousness though, you see how I can attribute nonsensical motives in the same way he does, although my accusation was only slightly more ridiculous. Aside from the fact that there’s nothing wrong with writing however a person likes, and if he wants to try his hand at writing better there should be nothing barring him, including the accusations of his peers that he is vain, it’s inconsistent to attribute these motives to me. Incidentally this is not the first time this has been brought up on these forums or other forums, all I can say is people who are more used to me never complain about it. Sometimes there's nice threads on this board, for every coherent post there are three incoherent rambles and six posts which have absolutely no meaning. I have no problem with the totalitarian status of this board’s administration, or the fact that the only rule on tl.net is don’t get banned. You don’t have to have to be smarter or use any kind of profundity to improve the quality of language. I will use an example: http://www.pemberley.com/bin/emma/emma.cgi Some common traits like simple decency, politeness and lack of vulgarity makes reading forums like this a pleasure. If this forum sounds smarter than the average yahoo news forum, is it because the people who visit Jane Austen boards are smarter? Or is it because they refrain from voluntary stupidity? | ||
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neSix
United States1772 Posts
Or perhaps you can make a nice, cute little political statement by creating an internet forum for people with amazing grammar only, forcing anyone who leaves out an apostrophe or uses the wrong 'their' to be IP-Banned instantly...? | ||
Liquid`Jinro
Sweden33719 Posts
On February 22 2005 18:28 Hot_Bid wrote: moltke, i really hate your writing style, who the fuck are you trying to impress, nobody's going to jump on your dick for some well thought-out sentence structure pretentious ass Well.. If this was one of the great tfeign's (or that swedish IB guy :D) texts I'd be inclined to agree with you.. But I seriously don't think it was that bad..? I think he sometimes used 'alternate' words more for the effect than for efficiency but.. It wasn't really excessive and it wasn't exactly hard to read :-) Anyways, I can honestly say that I've probably picked up a lot more knowledge through tl.net than I have done from school.. My english is pretty much entirely a product of playing games/reading stuff online.. And it turned out pretty well I think. Anyways.. However I frequently read internet forums, and tl.net included, and am tempted every so often to reply to a thread, I find my vocabulary and and thought incapacitated by the very medium. It seems on the internet, the organic qualities of creativeness and sincerity vanish, and are replaced by a mechanical and stylized narrative. Doesn't this have more to do with the tone of the forum for which you are trying to express your views? I remember 'back in the days' when tl.net was young, it was a lot.. hm, how should I put this; gentler. It was much smaller so yeah, my posts were really different then, a lot of it, no doubt had to do with me being much younger but I think the way the forum felt had something to do with it as well. If I understood your last line correctly, in that you mean that one sort of adopts a 'style' and then it's very hard to stray from it, I sort of agree.. My posts now and during the tl.net early days were very different, much less 'aggression' (might not be the best way to put it). Why would your thoughts be stiffled though? You are just replying in a habitual way (I think I might be guilty of this at times)? After reading these forums , and other online material (including newspapers) for a time, I find my boredom increases, to the point that I scroll down the page as rapidly as possible and try to get the jist of the message. I take no pleasure in reading, and even on some topics I am interested in, just can't find the interest to reply. Doesn't this just mean that a) The author is not very good or b) you are quite fed up with the subject? I know that I was becoming a bit bored with reading the threads here on tl, and I did indeed just scroll through stuff.. But then I went to some other board, completely unrelated to this one and yeah, none of those signs were there.. There's nothing that dulls the mind in my experience more than online "communications." In some ways, this is naturally the nature of the internet itself: a vast proliferation of online material of great quantity and low quality. The "inflation" of information decreases its value and consequently, the quality of its expression. Hm.. I think this is a load of crap? Maybe if you tried to read everything out there.. How is this any different from a library (aside from the fact that a library usually is pretty calm and there's no advertizing, but it's not like you can't get around that)? There's plenty of books reproduced in their entirety online.. And plenty of articles that are just as well written if you read them online as if you should read them in a magazine, newspaper or what have you, no? I also feel that in recent times i've read more off of my computer screen than I have actually read from the printed page. Yeah. The thought ambushes my mind at the moment I am reading a rather well-written essay by a Philadalphian lady from the early 20th century who writes about the qualities of conversation, and causes me to reflect on the want of elegance, honesty and meaning (and I do believe these three qualities are mutually inclusive) which infiltrate my mind through the screen. I'm the last to give sociological theories much credit, but it seems to be that the longer I read from the internet, the more my capacity for language and consequently, freedom of thought degrade Maybe this is because english isn't my first language, but up until very recently I have experienced none of this.. My english is almost exclusively self learned.. Very little stems from school.. Again, doesn't this largely depend on who you are talking to? If you are addressing a bunch of kindergardeners day out and day in, and only speak to these kids you would probably experience the same thing you are experiencing now, right? It would seem to me that you aren't really getting the kind of feedback from your posts.. I think you used to be a really active poster during all the war debates here? I stopped reading them because well.. they were going too fast (I go to bed, and there's 20 new pages as well as a new thread-.-), they were going around in circles and I wasn't really interested.. Been quite some time I feel since we had a debate like that here, lots of the people in those have left.. Lots of knowledgable people.. Maybe this is part of why you are feeling so frustrated/bored? (at least when it comes to tl.net) Is internet writing a form of mental junk food? Addictive, yet unhealthy. Simone Weil (a defected Marxist) wrote sixty years ago that revolution, not religion was the opium of the masses. What of the "information" revolution which we are all consumed by? Hell yes it's unhealthy! I'm fucking my sleeping pattern right up again typing this reply, damn -_-;; Well, I can't pretend to know what I'm talking about but overstimulation? I think that's pretty hard to avoid though, would have to stop watching TV and somehow shield yourself from all the advertizing when you venture outside In conclusion: I most likely don't read anything even remotely similiar to what you read online (apart from teamliquid.net) so this might not be relevant to you at all.. but this is how I felt reading your post EDIT: I hope this turned out alright.. It's 4:30 AM and I should sleep :[ | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On February 22 2005 19:05 Hot_Bid wrote: i never said i could write better than you, i never said i was smarter than you, i just said you're trying way too hard to appear smart. judging by you name-dropping every sentence and writing "intellectual" every five words, i'd say my assessment was correct. i didn't subliminally imply anything, i have no idea who or what fin-de-siecle thinkers are. congratulations, you are smarter than me. I suppose great minds think alike, as I happen to have a distain for sour jargon or pretentious words as well as you do. "Intellectual" being among them. I also suppose that you're unacquainted with irony, in which people say things they would not normally say. | ||
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
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HnR)hT
United States3468 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
On February 22 2005 19:21 Veg wrote: Why should he care what people think of him? If he wanted to impress people on a bw forum, he'd try something like this Fin-de-siècle = end of century Also, I agree with what he wrote, but what can you do about it? Think memes, think cultural selection? Hey Moltke, fan of metal gear? edit: siècle typo ~_~ I have no clue what metal gear is, so at the risk of presumption I'm going to say no. According to my *ahem* internet research :D it seems metal gear is a nintendo game that I have never played. Answer is definite no. | ||
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