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

I will do when I get some honey out of my bees. But then, people know exactly what honey does and what to expect when they buy it. So I suppose asking for money for it is not unreasonable.

You say you have a friendly face. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn you were a friendly person as well. I think you'll find that the shared interest in crystals serves as a conduit for lonely and insecure people to get to know you better, and then their mental well-being benefits from merely having you around. Me - I'd be mighty glad to be regarded in such a manner, with or without the trappings of my mystical trade. But I think it's fair to say that most of the people who know me respect me highly but probably don't like me that much.

Fortunately, we can have our serious differences of opinion and finally agree to disagree on the strongest of terms, but at the end of the day FM can go home to his bees and family and greenhouse, ChiKiSpirit can go home to her crystals, JCN can go home to his theories about the nature of time, and everybody can enjoy a nice, hot cup of tea; nobody gets burned at the stake and nobody should need to worry about being gunned down in the street by extremists on motorbikes.

If the extremists have their way, however, even this will change. Logical discourse and debate do not appear to be their preferred way to convey their message or spread their beliefs.

As the saying goes, I may not agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to have and to express your opinion, so long as you don't try forcibly to impose it on others. Sounds like an idea we could live with: each to his or her own stupid opinion!

I think it's everyone's right to have an opinion. But it's also one's obligation to change it when the weight of countervailing evidence becomes overwhelming. To behave otherwise is simply to adopt an 'ostrich attitude', with one's head stuck in the sand. People who adopt such an attitude are belied when they start holding forth because there's only one orifice left to talk out of.

" I think it's fair to say that most of the people who know me respect me highly but probably don't like me that much. " I'm not at all sure how you'd define what it means to 'know' you, FM, but I'd say that I've gotten to know you at least somewhat through h2g2, and for whatever it's worth, I both respect you highly and like you! So you can just put that in your pipe and smoke it! And I'd guess that I'm not alone in this. Not everybody is "warm and cuddly and soft and gooey," but these qualities are not what everyone looks for in a friend, either. I personally like people who think clearly and who aren't afraid to say what's on their mind. Given this latter, I'd say you qualify as being someone I like just fine, for whatever that's worth! That and a £ or two will get you a coffee at Starbucks (have you been invaded by Starbucks yet? If not you probably soon will be).

"it's also one's obligation to change it when the weight of countervailing evidence becomes overwhelming." And amen to that! But if they don't, I still won't burn them at the stake just yet.

Well, this thread might still convince you of the fragility of your position...

F52677?thread=3510568

"The fact that I'm getting so exercised about the same kind of thinking going on here is because I still value what this site stands for. It took this entire thread to make me realise how much."

Yes, exactly. At least I'd say that coming round to this realization was a fitting and positive finale to what had gone before. I believe that what you and some others want, in the final analysis, is simply to maintain high standards of excellence and credibility for h2g2. It's only natural to be upset when you perceive those standards being carelessly and unnecessarily lowered. And it seems a shame that this should be anything other than totally obvious to all concerned.

I like you FM.

That's nice to know.

Do you know: this is the longesth thread I've had going on my PS. OK, there's been some noisy cross-talk from other channels but on the whole it's made a lot of sense. Which is reassuring.

Being very much a newcomer to this sort of on-line chatting, I've found it to be most interesting, both in terms of the substance of what's being said, and also in terms of the mechanics and evolution of the process itself ... the way several threads have ways of criss-crossing and occasionally overlapping, for example.

It's also interesting (to me at any rate) to try to fill out in my imagination more about the real people behind the disembodied voices in the threads. (There are real people out there ... aren't there? This isn't just all a house of mirrors or some sort of charade put on by one or two paid BBC employees momentarily assuming various guises to suit the occasion is it? And how would we ever know if it was?) Mind you I'm definitely not a solipsist! But occasionally I find that conversing with what conceivably could be imaginary people can be a bit disconcerting.

Back to your point, however, the sort of discourse which one finds in some of these threads is not easy to come across during the course of a typical day in "real life." Hence it helps fill a basic need for intellectual stimulation. Regardless of what else people might accuse you of, FM, I don't think they could successfully accuse you of having boring threads!

(question ? would be upside down if you were in Spain)Did you know, Mr. Smith, that if you add a person's name to your friend's bit at the bottom (if it's still there, I haven't looked) you automatically receive everything they write in their journal?
It can become confusing and sometimes people think they you have butted into one of their conversations, when, in reality, it turned up in your space. If it turned up in your space I think you have every right to read it, don't you? This question mark begins at the beginning of the paragraph. Better still I have altered this but kept my musings where they are because I am randomly musing.

Talk to again another day. At this point I would have added a smiley but Felonius doesn't like smileys and I might get prosecuted if I use a smiley.

"If it turned up in your space I think you have every right to read it, don't you?" Yes, of course you have a right to read it ... as we all seem to have a right to read anything we can find available for reading here at h2g2 ... I have no problem with any of that. As a simple matter of courtesy, however, it seems that before posting to an ongoing thread one might take the trouble to actually look at the thread to see what the conversation was all about and then refrain from posting non-sequiturs having nothing whatsoever to do with the thread. Just as I hope you wouldn't walk up to people engaged in a conversation on the street and interrupt what they were talking about to interject whatever chatter happened to be on your mind at the moment. Don't you think that would be a bit rude? So why isn't it rude to do what amounts to the same thing here then?

I don't mind anybody coming around here for conversation, providing it's germane to the topic in hand. All are welcome. I also don't mind threads evolving gradually. It's unreasonable to expect people to carry on talking about the same topic for ever. However, Mr Smith does have a point: if you don't feel you can join in meaningfully, then perhaps it's best to keep shtum. 'A wise man speaks because he has something to say...' and all that...

If Gnomon is adding his reputation to the decline of the guide then maybe the movement is gaining force.

I have a nasty habit of shooting from the mouth, without building arguements, and certain people on this site have gleefully slapped me down for it - so now I gather my facts and try for the sniper shot, rather than the blunderbuss. However in PR, more and more now I just unsubscribe, or at least ignore all but the grossest excesses.

If you were a dyslexic person you might not be able to read so much all at once. If I've appeared rude to you a do apologize. You don't need to bother seeing me again. I won't be seeing you and neither will any of my friends.

No, you haven't appeared rude to me. I do hope I haven't appeared rude to you, although most people find I do at times.

I'm not dyslexic, but I think JCN is talking about something different getting in the way of the flow of the conversation here. It all went off the rails a bit at post 110, I think, and that was nothing to do with you.

Where has Gnomon made his feelings plain, by the way? Is it in a thread I have misssed?

Threw me with the name change there Felonius.

You provided a link to Gnomon's, 'what think you? thread.' (I think.)

Ah, that. So we are talking in circles. Never mind.

I waiting to see who first figures-out what the name change means...

"You don't need to bother seeing me again. I won't be seeing you and neither will any of my friends." Please don't go away mad, love! All I was asking is that you engage your brain before you engage your keyboard! Is that such a totally unreasonable request ... even for a dyslexic person? I get dyslexic just trying to spell dyslexic. This choice of name may be a trick they use to make people thing they're dyslexic even when they're really not.