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

Too many sock puppets around. Decidedly unfroody man.

Beatrice...thank you very much...I will have a look...it´s the staff who recommended me to post it over here.

When it comes to those "teaching me manners"...I can only say...this kind of bad education soap mouth washing attitude increased on the net,mostly done by patronising usamericains...the more the Iraq war started to look like a bloody mess and Bush&co "empowered" them to make some feel as the navel of the "empire"!.As a friend coming home from Iraq to his home town told me...THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.It´s a classical contra-balancing of reality projecting "the evil" on those "not belonging to the worthy of respect"ones..A bit like the "manners" formalism in the German society of the 30.The illogical attitude pretending...we own the right to trespass limits because we "educate the world", but not our victims.A very middle class wannabe opportunism, by the way.

I suppose, that I have as a French intellectual aristo, a different view on "manners" than holier than thou belt spanked to "reason" bigots, who never had truly a chance to question the status quo.

So...let´s rephrase it..it´s in my eye an "insult" to consider all people involved in social changes and the ecological movement fighting the 70 only under the point of view of fashion...!
despite what the clique send to mob thinks about it!.

now back to the original topic...:

COMPLEXITY PHOBIA...but..may I ad seems...
and some ways to avoid to think about it,confirming it!
thanks for contributing to this last part with great enthusiasm!

Warm thanks to those truly engaging! very precious!

kearrr...take a seat...the bus will not go too fast,I think...we are just leaving the suburbs...in soon..maybe a view from the hill on the forest of heart full thoughts.

You might be interested to know that you come across in these forums as a bit "holier than thou" yourself, Ma'dame Aristocratic Intellectual.

Apollonia,

Could I just say that you do appear to start a monologue in which you are right, rather than a point of view in a discussion. It's not familiar round these parts to have what can come across as quite abstract arguing. Yes, we do try to be 'nice' but that's because we do try and all get along, more or less. we learn more (well, some of us) from having conversations rather than simply shouting over each other.

Any social group will have rules, you could call this place cliquey but I personally haven't really found it to be like that. Perhaps I was accepted into the cliques naturally but that's not something I've ever attempted to do in life or here. What I did do though was try to see how people conduct themselves (not what they say, how they say it) and fit into that. People do tend to hear arguments from their peers better than from strangers, wouldn't you agree? Especially on the www.

If you can be a bit thick skinned but also see why people might be objecting to you out of hand rather than telling them they are wrong for shunning you, then perhaps you'll settle in just fine.

Also, I know the etiquette's a bit confusing sometimes, I know I made some faux pas when I was a newbie, but people's journals are considered to be conversations among friends rather than community conversations (such as Ask and The Forum). While most people are pretty ok about you joining in, challenging people who are having a private conversation isn't necessarily that polite. I generally liken it to being in a classroom or pub with people you may know by sight but not be friendly with. Your judgement on whether to comment should be based on something like this.

Hi Apollina! Re-read your (and the following) posts, I think I'm getting the general idea.

I understand you wanting a good ol' "discussion", its great to air your views. But since joining this forum, I certainly haven't agreed with everyone's ideas and opinions, and I'm pretty sure they haven't with mine. What I have found though, is everyone is always polite, and dare I say it, NICE! I get the feeling they all take the time to read other posts carefully, even if they don't agree with the postee.

So what I'm trying to say is- chill out, read, enjoy yourself, and most of all, have a nice natter with someone.

Salut! Apollonia,
You have found that most people here are being nice, doing a constructive critic not on you but in your words and your interactions with others. I´ll try to do the same.


I don´t understand your post neither, and it´s not only because of the abrupt use of sentences, but also because of the content, which is no clear. Sentences flow when the idea flows in our minds. But all of us need to arrange them first, click Preview , read and think if what we are saying is clear, it´s relevant to the place or the moment... Sometimes I fail. And I feel bad afterwards, but all the people here is understanding and patient. Most of them.

I think you need to elaborate more your points. Take your time. Think in the best way to communicate what you want to.

Phylosophical questions are hard to handle. It requires many times a lot of previous knowledge to be able to appreciate or understand them.
If you want to talk about it you need to be kind of didactical, you must synthesize ideas, make clear references (school of thoughts, trends, authors...if they are relevant) it also requires flexibility. To be open to other points of view.
What I don´t understand is that bit of “aristo”. I find it patronising, if I have understood what you mean.

You feel you have a special knowledge or way of thinking, you want to talk about something to share it, I want to believe. Maybe you also wanted to steam off here what happened in the other thread.
Whatever it is, be sure that anyone, included you, who make their points clear, can expect people who could, first, consider your ideas, and then engage to discuss them.

With respect, generalisations about any national or ethnic group will nearly always cause offense. Please do not assume that every American on this site agrees with the policies of the Bush Administration. Thank you.

>>When it comes to those "teaching me manners"...I can only say...this kind of bad education soap mouth washing attitude increased on the net,mostly done by patronising usamericains.>>

Oh puh-lease - at least do us the favour of finding out a bit about the person/s you reply to by clicking on their names in the conversation threads. That'll lead you to their user pages, where you might actually find out that I, for one, am not a 'usamericain' but, as I somewhat jokingly like to call it, a SwedoFinn (Finnish parents, born and raised in Sweden).

As for 'teaching you manners' what you've done in some conversation thread/s can be compared to this:

Picture a pub.
Picture a couple of friends having a quiet round of beers seated at a table, chatting about this and that.

Enter: perplexingApollonia, who spots the - maybe - interesting looking bunch around the table, so she sits down at a table near them to listen in on what they have to say.

To her utter horror, perplexingApollonia finds their conversation topics to be light-hearted, shallow and, at times, even jesting and unserious.

Decidedly, she gets up, joins the ring of complete strangers, sits down without an invitation and without even introducing herself. Then she starts talking in a very loud voice so as to make herself clearly heard, trying to force - yes, *force* - the beer drinkers to start discussing 'serious' matters for a change. Matters that *she* finds important, that *she* has decided are 'suitable'.

Now, in real life, this kind of behaviour might cause someone to punch perplexingApollonia on the jaw or even through her out of the pub.

But here at h2g2, we're generally a friendly bunch of people, so the crowd tried to reply politely to begin with. But when you started calling us names when we didn't agree with you taking over the conversations we were having with our friends does tend to make us maybe a teeny weeny bit grumpy. Maybe.

And I find it hard to believe that you'd actually behave like that in real life, perplexingApollonia. So when you post here at h2g2, could I please ask you to pay closer attention to *where* you post. Thank you.

>>
I welcome everybody to share.."his/her way".
I deeply trust in our common ability to understand each other by remaining in touch with our senses making sense!.If not...we can ask!
<<

However, you do seem to be quite critical of a number of people on h2g2, sometimes insultingly so, and that appears at odds with both the kind of in depth discussion you want and the idea just stated that you welcome everyone to share their own way. I'm not sure if that is intentional or if it's a language thing. Myself, I'm still willing to cut you some slack and give you the benefit of the doubt because you are new here and don't seem to understand the culture of the place yet. I can see that some others have are closer to their limit than I am (understandably IMO).


>>
kearrr...take a seat...the bus will not go too fast,I think...we are just leaving the suburbs...in soon..maybe a view from the hill on the forest of heart full thoughts
<<

Sorry, mate, I'm not actually on the bus yet. I'm standing in the h2g2 backyard wondering who the new upstart is and whether they're going to take some time to become part of the community or if we're at the start of another escalating conflict.

I get the desire for meaningful conversation. It's one of the main reasons I am here. I'm not sure if you realise this yet but this is an old community (by internet standards). It's been going ten years. There are people here who have been here for all of that time. I've been here six, and I've seen many, many times new people arrive and think they can just do whatever they like, not realising that this isn't a free for all space. It's more a collection of interconnected long established communities that all have their own mores and ways of operating. It's a village, and the people that live and visit here have a very strong sense of ownership of the place, and often a deep, abiding love for the place. As such there is a need for respect.

If you arrived in my village in RL and started telling the locals that they don't know how to think properly (which is what you seem to be doing on h2g2), or you wandered into someone's living room and interrupted a long conversation and started telling people what you think and how they're wrong in what they're talking about and why are they being so shallow, they'd most like tell you to F off.


I know that others have made suggestions about how you can get to know the place. I'm not sure whether you realise how helpful they are being, but just in case, here's my own suggestions:

The places for jumping into challenging debate are Ask and The Forum. Even there though, it pays to take some time to engage with *people* in the threads. This includes asking questions. It's also traditional to express opinions as opinions, and to be able to back up statements of fact. Not doing so tends to piss people off. Jumping in with non-sequitur rhetoric will often get ignored. Referencing back to something in the thread, by posting a quote from what has been said, is more likely to get taken seriously. There are often interludes of off topic discussion and silliness. Silliness is a high art form here and valued by many.

Conversations on Personal Spaces (convos and journals) tend to be considered more personal even though they are accessible to anyone on the internet. It's useful to introduce yourself in such threads and tell people why you've suddenly started posting there. Some of those threads are very personal, in that the people there know each other well, regularly talk to each other, and have established ways of relating with each other. Because they are on Personal Spaces, it's usually considered up the the person whose space it is to determine what kinds of convos happen. If they want to talk about things you consider superficial then that's their perogative. If you want serious conversation then seek it out elsewhere, there's plenty of it.


The rest of h2g2 can be quite complex to get to navigate and know. Have you taken the h2g2 Tour?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/DontPanic-Tour

The basis of h2g2 is the Edited Guide. Anyone can write and entry and submit it to a review process for inclusion. Alongside the EG are many different aspects of the wider h2g2 community.

On your PS will be a welcome from an ACE. If you don't understand anything on h2g2 then you can ask in that thread and your ACE will most likely be able to help you out.

And what everyone else said!

I'm impressed by the amount of effort being put into showing how things work here. That's a good sign Apollonia, it means that people are wanting you to find a way of being here that works

>> And what everyone else said! <<



Yeah it's like 'old home week' around here.
Nice to see so many of the old crowd popping
up to offer guidance to a newbie who clearly
is not normally the guidable type. And it turns
out 'he' is a French chick! How hot is that!
And 'she' writes in a stream of consciousness
style which often has to be read out loud to be
understood. Try it! The accent wanders from Yankee
casual to Hari Krishna Imperative.

This is not the best sample:

>> The niceness addiction is CREATING some rudeness
and is mostly a passive aggressive violent rude
distortion of reality in itself. <<

But I quote it to take exception and point out that
cyberspace is by definition a distortion of reality
and therefore subject to individual interpretation.

Whatever 'realities' there may be in cyberspace, could
be found in a distillation of the last 20 odd posts.
Certain themes appeared several times from several sources
and one can safely assume that this majority of opinion
does impose a kind of reality, in a passive aggressive
kinda way.

Oh, and I want some of whatever Capt Black is smoking, dudd!

~jwf~

Right on man!

So! What was the question?Getting rather fed up with people coming to Ask and then just making mission statements without ever asking a question.

I have one?What is this conversation about?

What exactly is a complexity phobia when it's at home?

Is it a desire for the simple life?Simple,easily read and understood.Or is it a means to complicate and make matters less open to being understood?

If it was the former you have failed

If it's the latter then you have succeeded.

To Mister Invisible, unseen, etc

I also tried to read the messages - outload, silently, backwards and many other ways. I believe that if you have any recreational Pharmaceuticals to hand, it all becomes a lot clearer .....

well...that much to :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephant_in_the_room

I bet 2legs' pony gives that elephant a run for its money.

Where is 2legs anyway?

I think..I will wait till someone KNOWS what complexity phobia means...and how it affect his&our life!

The last comments appears more like willingly participative complexity phobia(fish in the sea syndrome)imposing me through group mobbing, to call the emperors dress.."nice"!

Being socialised to mutual call a :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9

"manners", is not understanding that the word étiquette(label)is a social construct to show respect to a hierarchy in a class society.
It´s not a democratic or ethical process of cooperation. but...obviously when members of a subordinate class PRETENDS that the pet training stick is "for everybody's best"....we have a philosophical problem..facing people not able to formulate an inner natural code of value.As the Tao says it with straight grace...when Codes of well behaving appears,the violent lie rules society.

I regret deeply that the most people don't know how to handle hand kisses with decency....but..it´s not my aim, to impose to other my background of education...my wish is as said before...to reflect about :

COMPLEXITY PHOBIA

Feel still welcome to contribute to this topic!

Even if some insist to think the opposite..intelligence is not an insult, but a useful tool!

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=complexity+phobia&fulltext=Search

But what IS this "complexity phobia" you keep banging on about? It's not a term that even Wikipedia recognises (see link), so you're going to have to define it for us if it's a term you've invented.