Re: Treatment of some posters

From: PD (pdraper_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 02/09/05 

Date: 9 Feb 2005 06:55:40 -0800

N:dlzc D:aol T:com (dlzc) wrote:
> Someone raised the point that there are some posters that appear to
be
> treated shabbily. They appear to come up with "constructs" to test
for
> paradoxes in (usually) SR. It is was asked, "Why do you treat ____
this
> way? He is only doing what Einstein himself did."
>
> In one case, treatment like this has kept one poster coming back here
for
> more. For as much as 8 years. So these folks come here for the
abuse,
> apparently. And their price of admission appears to be some new
> "construct".
>
> I suggest that you do the thing that comes natural to you. If poster
A is
> another Einstein in your eyes, then do as you will. But for many,
poster A
> is simply here for a new dose of medicine... It won't fix him/her,
but
> everyone feels better, and poster A keeps coming back for more.
>
> I offer this as "why" some posters are treated with less than great
> respect.
>
> David A. Smith

There are several kinds of posters to this group
- those who are interested in relativity but have not studied it except
through popularizations, and who are struggling with a mix of what they
read and what they intuit to be right; these are often folks who think
they have learned more than they really have, a definite problem with
popularizations. These are the Confused.
- those who want a shot at instigating a revolution of the same order
of relativity, but are misguided on how much and what kind of work is
required to do that. These are the Vainglorious.
- those who simply don't believe relativity and are willing to spend
great effort in debunking it, even though their mind has been made up
long before they carefully examined it. These are the Prejudiced.
- those that want to learn physics but are unprepared to deal with the
math or library research or careful reading of experimental results
required to do this properly. These are the Unskilled.
- those that have invested a huge amount of time and emotional effort
to an alternate model and are not able to deal effectively with precise
criticism on the weak points of their model, let alone accept the
possibility that their model might be simply... wrong. These are the
Stubbornly Astray.
- there are those that relish the position of being a lone voice, an
iconoclast, a dissenter. These are the Self-Proclaimed Martyrs.
- there are those that simply like the exercise of the discussion and
don't particularly care what the truth really is. These are the
Bickerers.

The response to these various types of posters is wide and various.
Some have no tolerance for any of these and dismiss them uniformly and
immediately. Some are willing to probe an idea until coherence is lost
and then simply abandon further discussion. Some are willing to
strenuously and creatively pick apart the posters to get them to
abandon their foolish notions. Some focus on the personalities (the
labels I made above) rather than on the physics.

I can't discern which of these constitutes shabby treatment, nor in
which cases shabby treatment is probably warranted.

PD

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