h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is this a valid question to ask here?

Has it been asked before?

What, exactly _is_ preconceived opinion, anyway, as opposed to, say the variety of opinion that is post-conceived?

Also, if it is, indeed a pit, what kind of pit is it? Cherry, or simply peach?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Or should that be 'enquiring'? I always get those confused..

Yes.

But I love it anyway. And every now and then someone like McKay, Zagreb or Novo who usually start from a different preconception form me actually get me to change mine.

A preconcieved opinion is one that people have before they have children.






...and the pit...is a cess-pit probably.

turvy

I think most people decide where they stand on a subject and then decide why they take the position they do afterwards. People are very, very tribal about certain issues.

Certainly, there's a lot of good debate on here but there's an awful lot of tiresome boilerplate as well. I won't name names.

No.

Is that a pre-conceived idea ste or have you decided that having weighed the arguments?

How dare you, you racist!

No... and I thought it was the pit of desire... or is that pip of desire... oh. maybe then.

Yes.

But sometimes the roads people take to their opinions can be a lot more interesting than the place they end up.

And sometimes something so off-field occurs that I have to go away and make up a whole ill-concieved opinion to argue about.

Hmmm. The roads I take always seem to end in multiple pile ups.

The Forum may well be a pit, but there's certainly more than one preconcieved opinion.

And how would you know?

az

Oh, all right then - a serious answer.

It seems that the main difference between the Forum and Ask these days is that they have different groups of 'regulars' who routinely hijack the threads there.

On Ask it will end up having something to do with perceived 'naughty sex' and at the Forum it'll end up as a religion-bashing or otherwise 'try to offend your opponent as much as possible' fest.

Which is weird because neither places used to be that way.

I wonder why they've changed so much.

az

oops ... neither *place* ... dang!

az

I think they've changed because the Mods don't have the intellectual capacity to engage in the argument. Their main concern is to limit the risk of exposing the BBC to any criticism.

<>'

Sono non d'accordo! In other words, I have to disagree... They have always pretty much been like that.

Now I am coming here less often, I find it amusing...

Vicky

Vicky, when have you agreed?

I, like most people have preconceived ideas about things and will argue my viewpoint whether it be in Ask or the Forum. I don't tend to differentiate much. What I do find though is that in any thread I'll change my ideas about things when I read intelligent posts, eg blicky. And vice versa if they don't strike me as very intelligent. (Best not to quote any egs )

Yes - but I like it that way - it gives me an opportunity to engage in ritualistic willy waving in a way that I can't do in real life without irritating people that I live and interact with.

sprout

What kind of opinions do you want?

Post conceived ones, temporally impossible, spontaneously conceieved without any reference to pas experience or thoughts.

Sorry as with real life preconceived are the only ones you're likely to get, but if you stick with it you'll sometimes see your own r other peoples changing when someone puts forward a novel idea or puts forward an old idea in a way that they can understand better than they did previously.
While Im here on one of these navel gazing threads Id like to:

Salute SWL for recently surpriing me on several threads and making a damn good effort at playing devils advocate or possibly changing his slant a little.

Salute Arnie for the response to Della.

Distance myself from anything Fanny says about me

Concur entirely with sprout

And finally conclude that the miserable old git who was rude to me merely for pointing out that one of the articles he linked to was tripe, is as I have said before the dullest poster I have ever come across.

Inspite of or more likely because of htis and other things I still enjoy the forum.

Oh and when Blues, ferrettbro independently talk to one researcher he assumes we are picking on him as a team, brilliant!