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

SoRB. SoRB. SoRB. SoRB. SoRB.

Not bad, but a bit tricky with the caps/no caps thing. Sure as f**k shifty will never get it right.

Welcome home.


az

Welcome home, SoRB.

And stay home! You're needed here!!!

Assuming, on no evidence whatsoever, that you'll be back one day to read this, Hoo, I offer this comment.

<< "none of us are either ignorant or conservative!"

And yet, surprise surprise, yet another person with no axe to grind instantly recognised you and your family from that description. >>

That is not in itself any indication that her family are 'ignorant and conservative', still less that they are the 'family from Hell'. It means only that they are frequently called that.

TRiG.

I shall reply to this because it's a quick, easy mistake to demolish.

"<< "none of us are either ignorant or conservative!"

And yet, surprise surprise, yet another person with no axe to grind instantly recognised you and your family from that description. >>

That is not in itself any indication that her family are 'ignorant and conservative' [...]. It means only that they are frequently called that."

Premises:

1. Della and family were described as ignorant and conservative. Whether with reason or not, whether correctly or not, is irrelevant.

2. Della stated that they are neither ignorant nor conservative and that the description was therefore in error.

3. A person with no agenda, no history of conflict with Della or her family, recognised them from the description "ignorant and conservative".

This last would suggest that the description is, in fact accurate.



It may interest you to know that on multiple occasions Della has referred to me as an American. She has also on multiple occasions made fun of me for being in my late fifties.

Many users of h2g2 either know me personally or have at least met me, and know both of these to be false. Since I have, in my thirty seven years, spent a total of seven days in the USA, all of them in 2006, her description of me is inaccurate. I would suggest that, regardless of how many times she repeats her description of me as an American nearing retirement age, no impartial observer could recognise me from that description.

By contrast, without prompting, said impartial observers HAVE recognised Della and family from the "ignorant and conservative" description. I suggest they if they did not exhibit these attributes, this would not occur, regardless of how many times people called them that. (Unless those doing the recognising were benightedly stupid and easily led themselves, of course.)

A post from Hoo!

I would contend that the phrase "family from Hell" at least, and also the phrase "ignorant and conservative", though in that case to a lessar extent, was being used less as a description than as a title. It is a title which has, fairly or unfairly, become attached to Della, as it is simplest to call her, and to her family.

If I saw, on h2g2, the phrase "a certain well-known ignorant and conservative Researcher" I would imagine that the poster was talking about Della. This may not because I think Della is ignorant and conservative. It may be because I know that she is commonly called that.

There's a flaw in your logic, here. Recognising that a description is commonly applied to a certain person does not mean that you agree with that description.

My point is that six7s relationship with Della is not entierly independent of your relationship with her. You both know her through h2g2. You both interact with her in the same conversations, in the same fora. You've both read what each other have written to and about her, and you've both read what other people have written to and about her. Basically, you, six7s, and she are members of the same community, and are aware, to some extent, of what people call other people.

Six7s may well, as you say, "have no axe to grind", but that doesn't mean that his opinion is entierly neutral, or even that he holds the opinion that you ascribe to him.

Anyway, this isn't about six7s opinion. It's about recognising a title/description which is applied to a certain individual and known across the community. That six7s recognised it shows mearly that he is a member of this community and knows what's going on. It does not show that he agrees that this title/desctiption should be applied to this individual, merely that he knows it commonly is.

I'm repeating myself.

(Disclaimer: six7s' actual opinion of Della is imaterial to the topic under discussion. The fact that he didn't contradict you himself suggests that you had it right. But your logic was still based on an unstated assumption.)

TRiG.

Oh, and I forgot my aside!

Do you have any idea why Della thinks that you're American? I'm just curious.

Good grief! I do waffle a lot, don't I?

I used to think Hoo was American, before I got more familiar with the personal side of his life (not that I know much about it but previously I'd only seen his opinions).

The valid questions here are:

1) Is there sufficient reason to believe Della is conservative?

2) is there sufficient reason to believe Della is ignorant?

Posting histories pretty much confirm both. A casual stroll through her posts will reveal much of conservative thought. She quotes National Review and Fox News. She is heavily religious, supports the anti-abortion movement, is openly anti-gay, and generally favors extreme right-wing positions. A less casual stroll will reveal a whole lot of instances wherein Della has argued as fact positions which simply hold no credibility, positions which most 12-year old students would recognize as false and outdated.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

As for the American thing... anyone of the masculine persuasion who argues vehemently with Della automatically becomes her former lover, a 50-something expatriate in America named Bill.

I agree that Della is conservative in many of her views. I think she votes on the left though, and supports leftish causes that don't conflict with her religious views. Some kind of hybrid then?

Dunno about 'hybrid'... more a freak of nature...

The idea that someone can (a) preach to all and sundry that human rights don't apply to gays, lesbians, pregnant women, etc and (b) vote for the right wing is bizarre - especially so when you consider that 'National', the largest *right* wing (opposition) party here in Aotearoa/NZ, is MORE liberal/LESS conservative than the UK and US *left* wing parties...

Question 2) is not really a valid question if you ask me. It's needless provocation.

It's needful provocation. It's relevant to the discussion at hand.

Besides, I was being nice. I only used "ignorant." Ignorance can be corrected. The original word was "idiot." Idiocy is not so easily corrected.

How perfectly charming.

Hiya,

I have been a-lurking on a few threads you're contributing to and your comments (somewhere?) about the ideomotor effect re dowsing awakened my interest in the matter

And... I thought I'd share a personal anecdote

Although (or perhaps because) I describe myself as a 'devout () sceptic and pan-atheist', a few years ago I accepted a challenge to try dowsing for myself

I used a 2m-or-so length of what we call 'number-8' (farm-fence) wire, crudely bent (by hand) into the shape of a chicken's 'wish-bone' with two 'handles' bent out at the ends, grasped (just tightly enough to hold it in a horizontal plane) by my 'pinky' fingers

At the time, every conscious thought was (silently) screaming 'bull-shit!' and my subconscious thoughts were, if anything, intent on falsifying the idea of dowsing - not very scientific I know... but hey, at least I'm honest

So... it came as one hell of a surprise when, in a variety of locations, I 'felt' the wire being pulled (against my will - as exercised by the grip of my pinky fingers) into a vertical plane

I repeated the 'experiment' perhaps five times over the following few months and the results were consistent, if not accurate - in terms of identifying where water was flowing...

I knew this to be so cos I had laid water pipes from a well to a pump some 50m away... plus I knew both the location of 2 springs and the direction the water flowed... and my 'dowsing' routinely failed to match

Anyhoo...

At no time (before, during or since) did I ever consider that there could be any 'supernatural' influence...

Instead my hunch (I'm no physicist) was that it might be some kind of coil effect - with perhaps an electron flow generated from an underground stream of water... or something... anything other than some 'woo-woo' influence

Until I read, thanks to you, about the ideomotor effect
http://skepdic.com/ideomotor.html

< quotes >
The term "ideomotor action" was coined by William B. Carpenter in 1852 in his explanation for the movements of rods and pendulums by dowsers,

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Furthermore, these tests demonstrate that "honest, intelligent people can unconsciously engage in muscular activity that is consistent with their expectations"
</ quotes >

I'd like to think I'm 'honest' and, by standard tests, I'm led to believe that I'm reasonably intelligent. However... my muscular activity was INconsistent with my expectations

Or was it????

Now, I'm wondering how I could devise an experiment that couldn't be influenced by an ideomotor effect - but still uses a living body (cos that might be a factor) to hold the wire

Know any candidates for a full-frontal lobotomy?

I could offer you a few

"Know any candidates for a full-frontal lobotomy?"

I'd rather have a full bottle in front o' me...