What's your story, TK? Ridicule seems to be your stock in trade. But why do you have such an emotional investment in ridiculing Debunkers?

You, of course, would claim you're not emotionally involved. But look at some of the symptoms:

• You ridiculed pollies as a group, claiming that none of us were experts and we had no reason to expect Y2K to be the big nothing that it was. But Johnathan noted that he had collected and archived six thousand documents from a wide range of sources including numerous industry experts that proved his point. Then you ridiculed him for having a collection of documents backing up his position. Such a flip-flop is not reasonable unless you have some emotional motive for proving him to be wrong no matter what the facts are.
• You ridicule Doc as a hypocrite for making a profit on his web site while he berated the Doombrood hucksters. Doc was appealing to debunkers to support his board through a normal activitiy, buying books online. The doomsday hawkers were planting fear in their potential customers to drive them to irrational activities--buying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of overpriced survivalist rations. And they were pressuring their clients to recruit new converts to the doom view in order to make more sales. There is no moral equivalency to the two sides. To see them as equal, you have to be motivated by some kind of emotional investment.
• You ridicule a psychological construct, "meme", that we used to explain the contagion of fear and doom that seemed to grip the other side. You seem to delight in using the term incorrectly even though the doomers seemed to grasp the concept. And you seem to refuse to understand the idea even though Latimer, perhaps the most civil and courteous of the debunkers, has patiently explained and re-explained the issue. In a civil debate, the rational response is to try to understand the opponent's point of view. Refusing to acknowledge an opponent's position is an emotion-based response.

There are many other examples, but these will suffice. You claim to come from a non-Y2K background so you don't have an emotional response to our barroom brawl. If that's so, why are you using such emotion-laced tactics?

Further, why do you have such an emotional investment in Y2K that you are ridiculing the group who called the outcome 110% correctly, to quote a legendary debunker? Why haven't you appeared at the doomer's still-functioning boards to ridicule them as well? As you can read here, many of them are still carrying a torch for Y2K catastrophe.

Don't think I've proved the point?

OK, look at it from another angle. Assume random Members of the Public (MOPs) stumble upon Poole's Roost and into one of the Y2K threads. After a while the MOPs can decipher that most of us were pollies, seasoned with an occasional repentant doomer (e.g. Lars ;)

[HEAVY-HANDED PEDANTRY MODE ON]

Now ask yourself these questions:

Q: How many MOPs would even be interested in participating in the Y2K discussion at all?

A: Maybe one in ten thousand. If that. It's a dead issue. Gone. Didn't seem to affect anyone.

Q: OK, we've narrowed the field to one in ten thousand MOPs. Which group, doomers or debunkers, would most MOPs be interested in ridiculing?

A: This is America. We love winners. And some of the doomers were pathetically, even comically wrong. One of their leading lights suggested that the American public might kill all the programmers if Y2K turned out to be catastrophic. (Try finding precedent for that anywhere in human history.) If anyone should be ridiculed post facto, it would seem to be the still-active doomers, not the Debunkers. A MOP might be put off by CPR or the rough-and-tumble verbal assaults, but it is not reasonable that a MOP would ridicule Debunkers in general without a substantial additional motivation to do so.

Q: Of those rare MOPs who wanted to ridicule the "winners" of our Internet brawl, what would they be likely to ridicule?

A: Rational people would ridicule that which is ridiculous. Maybe "ridiculous" is in the eye of the beholder, but in general,

• Would an average MOP consider it ridiculous to claim that many of us were experts? Not likely. Many of the debunkers were engineers of various stripes, technical experts in various fields such as embedded systems, Y2K project managers, programmers and systems analysts, and so on. The power industry engineers held an extended online debriefing, for instance. It's entirely possible that Doc was in the minority because so many of us had technical experience of one sort or another that related to Y2K. A MOP could not assemble the same level of experience at TB2K. Unless you consider The Paula and the chemtrail crowd experts.
• Would an average MOP think it ridiculous for Jonathan to claim that he had done extensive background research to prove his beliefs? Either he did exceptionally thorough due diligence, including archiving source material, to back up his claims or he's anal retentive for squirreling away 6,000 documents. A rational MOP would tend to come down on one side of the fence or the other, but not straddle it in order to ridicule Latimer from both sides. (Anyone who would ridicule someone as civil as Latimer is not a well person.)(Or Poole either, for that matter.)
• Would an average MOP think Doc's attempt to subsidize his board was ridiculous? To quote the Don Quixote of doomers, "Oh, puh-leeeze." It's common practice. And at least Doc was up front about it. Many boards don't advertise that they make a profit from the Amazon links. And as noted above, it's not even in the ethical and moral ballpark with the shameless fearmongering that went on at TB2K to make (expletive deleted) profits selling survival supplies. Not even in the same universe. An average, rational MOP would not have any difficulty understanding the difference between them.
• Would an average MOP find it ridiculous for us to use psychological jargon, "meme" to describe the behavior of the doomers? Maybe. Maybe not. A MOP who is not emotionally vested in Y2K would argue the point pro or con depending on an understanding of the term, its currency in psychological literature, etc. But it's difficult to believe that an average MOP would simply refuse to acknowledge the underpinnings of the theory or ridicule pollies as a group just for using the word.

Q: So what would motivate a MOP to ridicule debunkers as a group on points and in ways such as those noted above?

A: Two explanations come to mind. Both require some emotional energy to maintain such a consistent level of irrational ridicule:

1. CPR is right. The MOP is an embittered doomer bent on revenge.
2. The MOP is acting out a social pathology from the comfortable anonymity of an internet discussion board.

[HEAVY-HANDED PEDANTRY MODE OFF]

 

That's the way it looks, TK. In most cases your arguments are NOT rational. You skewer straw men (e.g. "meme"), or divert attention to irrelevant issues (e.g. "profits" from Amazon links).

Most of the time your issues are not even arguments. They are simply ridicule, an entirely different, aggressive and hostile activity. And they involve active, deliberate avoidance of facts, so by and large you can't call them debunking, either.

Let's make it even simpler, TK. You're asking us to believe that

1. An average, Y2K-unaware MOP stumbled into our board
2. The MOP quickly judged that most of us were technically illiterate, frauds, hypocrites, and Internet hoodlums
3. The MOP is totally, even willfully ignorant of our individual backgrounds, our Y2K history, and Y2K technical and social issues
4. The MOP decided to use asinine and irrelevant ridicule in order "debunk" our opinions of ourselves
5. The MOP is motivated by the pursuit of Truth, Justice and ....

Pardon me a moment. I have to take a barf break.

[SARCASM ON]

So tell us, TK, pray tell: what is the fire in your belly?

[SARCASM /HEAVY]

Why are you doing this, really?

-- Anonymous, September 09, 2001

Answers

What's your story, TK? Ridicule seems to be your stock in trade.

It isn't. I don't ridicule anyone for the sheer sport of it. However, in many cases, I do help people simply make fools of themselves. Especially when they are obviously trying to trap others in their Internet hysteria.

You know, like that "doctor" that made (or tried to make) money off of Y2K suckers. Or that realtor who thinks that he is a "computer expert".


But why do you have such an emotional investment in ridiculing Debunkers?

I don't. I come here during my lunch hours, and sometimes early and late during the weekdays.

And because ... it is fascinating to see a group of people who have totally been sucked in to Internet hysteria, suffered for it (many having given up income, lost jobs, etc.), yet keep on keeping on. Over an issue that is dead, dead, dead. And wasn't that much of a big deal in the first place.


You, of course, would claim you're not emotionally involved.

Yep, that's what I claim, which you already knew. So why would you ask the question when you already knew my answer?


But look at some of the symptoms:

"Symptoms"? Of something infectious, perhaps?...


You ridiculed pollies as a group, claiming that none of us were experts and we had no reason to expect Y2K to be the big nothing that it was.

Well, not really. As I understand the term "pollies", I guess I fit that bill pretty much, since I expected that the Y2K bug was going to get handled well by the people who get paid to do that. The difference is that I don't claim to be any kind of expert, I simply trusted the people who are. (Many of whom are indeed employed by -- gasp! -- the government. And a fair number probably even have .mil addresses! The horror, the horror!)


But Johnathan noted that he had collected and archived six thousand documents from a wide range of sources including numerous industry experts that proved his point. Then you ridiculed him for having a collection of documents backing up his position. Such a flip- flop is not reasonable unless you have some emotional motive for proving him to be wrong no matter what the facts are.

Yes, in his attic. He, with no apparent qualifications whatsoever, is hoarding technical documents that he believes supports his conclusion regarding the Y2K computer bug. And, by God, he was right -- he won the bar bet.

Yes, I find it funny. Jonathan's extrapolation to then claim that this somehow validates the nutball memetic stuff is even more funny.


You ridicule Doc as a hypocrite for making a profit on his web site while he berated the Doombrood hucksters. Doc was appealing to debunkers to support his board through a normal activitiy, buying books online.

This is truly deceptive. OK, so the test to be applied as to whether somebody is a huckster is whether they take your money via "normal activity" versus "abnormal activity"? Give me a break -- both Doc Paulie and Gary North happily accepted Visa and Mastercard, I'm sure.

By the way, others have commented that Doc Paulie didn't actually make much money from this. I say that is irrelevant: It's the thought that counts. If Gary North made a lot of money from his huckstering, and Doc barely made a dime, that's only because North obviously knew what the suckers were looking for and Doc didn't.


The doomsday hawkers were planting fear in their potential customers to drive them to irrational activities--buying thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of overpriced survivalist rations. And they were pressuring their clients to recruit new converts to the doom view in order to make more sales. There is no moral equivalency to the two sides. To see them as equal, you have to be motivated by some kind of emotional investment.

Huckstering is huckstering, regardless. This is not to say that, maybe, there was actually some rationalization by Paulie/North that what they were selling might have actually been useful to someone. I don't know, I can't read minds.

But the bottom line is: computer bugs are best left to experts. This certainly excludes people like Gary North and Doc Paulie.


You ridicule a psychological construct, "meme", that we used to explain the contagion of fear and doom that seemed to grip the other side. You seem to delight in using the term incorrectly even though the doomers seemed to grasp the concept. And you seem to refuse to understand the idea even though Latimer, perhaps the most civil and courteous of the debunkers, has patiently explained and re-explained the issue. In a civil debate, the rational response is to try to understand the opponent's point of view. Refusing to acknowledge an opponent's position is an emotion-based response.

The entire Y2K thing appears to have been a "strawman" for the "Y2K debunkers" to promote this memetics quackery. Step One: Find a bunch of people who believe something ridiculous -- in this case, that a computer bug was going to cause the world to end. Step Two: Say that they are "infected" by a "meme", and place a bar bet that the world will not end on Jan 1, 2000. Step Three: After the world does not end, claim that "memetics" has in fact been validated.

Nuts. All of it. Nuts.


There are many other examples, but these will suffice. You claim to come from a non-Y2K background so you don't have an emotional response to our barroom brawl. If that's so, why are you using such emotion-laced tactics?

Sorry, but it is all that I can do to keep from bursting out laughing when I read the stuff here, hence a bit of emotional display. Especially cpr a.k.a. "Sister Caterine" and "Loon", not to mention Doc Paulie's peculiar brand of language. (Or, as Flint refers to it, "Doc Droolie".)

Maybe someone else can have the patience to try to entertain serious discussion with such antics. I can't. It's just too funny.


Further, why do you have such an emotional investment in Y2K that you are ridiculing the group who called the outcome 110% correctly, to quote a legendary debunker? Why haven't you appeared at the doomer's still-functioning boards to ridicule them as well? As you can read here, many of them are still carrying a torch for Y2K catastrophe.

I am not out to ridicule anyone for the sheer sport of it. However, I am not going to be bashful about calling a spade a spade, either.

You may have called the outcome "110% correctly", but your arguments were laced with nutball rhetoric. As Flint has put it, being right about the Y2K outcome did not make your arguments per se any less wrong.


Don't think I've proved the point?

Wow! You read my mind, yet again!!


OK, look at it from another angle. Assume random Members of the Public (MOPs) stumble upon Poole's Roost and into one of the Y2K threads. After a while the MOPs can decipher that most of us were pollies, seasoned with an occasional repentant doomer (e.g. Lars ;)

[HEAVY-HANDED PEDANTRY MODE ON]

Now ask yourself these questions:

Q: How many MOPs would even be interested in participating in the Y2K discussion at all?

A: Maybe one in ten thousand. If that. It's a dead issue. Gone. Didn't seem to affect anyone.

Q: OK, we've narrowed the field to one in ten thousand MOPs. Which group, doomers or debunkers, would most MOPs be interested in ridiculing?

A: This is America. We love winners. And some of the doomers were pathetically, even comically wrong. One of their leading lights suggested that the American public might kill all the programmers if Y2K turned out to be catastrophic. (Try finding precedent for that anywhere in human history.) If anyone should be ridiculed post facto, it would seem to be the still-active doomers, not the Debunkers. A MOP might be put off by CPR or the rough-and-tumble verbal assaults, but it is not reasonable that a MOP would ridicule Debunkers in general without a substantial additional motivation to do so.

Q: Of those rare MOPs who wanted to ridicule the "winners" of our Internet brawl, what would they be likely to ridicule?

A: Rational people would ridicule that which is ridiculous. Maybe "ridiculous" is in the eye of the beholder, but in general,

Would an average MOP consider it ridiculous to claim that many of us were experts? Not likely. Many of the debunkers were engineers of various stripes, technical experts in various fields such as embedded systems, Y2K project managers, programmers and systems analysts, and so on. The power industry engineers held an extended online debriefing, for instance. It's entirely possible that Doc was in the minority because so many of us had technical experience of one sort or another that related to Y2K. A MOP could not assemble the same level of experience at TB2K. Unless you consider The Paula and the chemtrail crowd experts.

Would an average MOP think it ridiculous for Jonathan to claim that he had done extensive background research to prove his beliefs? Either he did exceptionally thorough due diligence, including archiving source material, to back up his claims or he's anal retentive for squirreling away 6,000 documents. A rational MOP would tend to come down on one side of the fence or the other, but not straddle it in order to ridicule Latimer from both sides. (Anyone who would ridicule someone as civil as Latimer is not a well person.)(Or Poole either, for that matter.)

Would an average MOP think Doc's attempt to subsidize his board was ridiculous? To quote the Don Quixote of doomers, "Oh, puh-leeeze." It's common practice. And at least Doc was up front about it. Many boards don't advertise that they make a profit from the Amazon links. And as noted above, it's not even in the ethical and moral ballpark with the shameless fearmongering that went on at TB2K to make (expletive deleted) profits selling survival supplies. Not even in the same universe. An average, rational MOP would not have any difficulty understanding the difference between them.

Would an average MOP find it ridiculous for us to use psychological jargon, "meme" to describe the behavior of the doomers? Maybe. Maybe not. A MOP who is not emotionally vested in Y2K would argue the point pro or con depending on an understanding of the term, its currency in psychological literature, etc. But it's difficult to believe that an average MOP would simply refuse to acknowledge the underpinnings of the theory or ridicule pollies as a group just for using the word.

Q: So what would motivate a MOP to ridicule debunkers as a group on points and in ways such as those noted above?

A: Two explanations come to mind. Both require some emotional energy to maintain such a consistent level of irrational ridicule:

1. CPR is right. The MOP is an embittered doomer bent on revenge.

2. The MOP is acting out a social pathology from the comfortable anonymity of an internet discussion board.

[HEAVY-HANDED PEDANTRY MODE OFF]

Amazing, just amazing. You can't see past what has been portrayed before as "The Reuben Delusion". Highly oversimplifying: The "goodies" fought the "badies", the "goodies" won, because they were "right", and so who but a "badie" would want to ridicule the "goodies"?

Let me explain it simply, again. You are trying to promote a piece of nutball quackery called memetics, and using the Y2K computer bug as some kind of validation for it. Anyone who argues against this must be a "badie" seeking "revenge" against the "goodies". This is the standard way that anyone in a cult would think, and you are thinking it big time.

Nuts. All of it. Nuts.


That's the way it looks, TK. In most cases your arguments are NOT rational. You skewer straw men (e.g. "meme"), or divert attention to irrelevant issues (e.g. "profits" from Amazon links).

Most of the time your issues are not even arguments. They are simply ridicule, an entirely different, aggressive and hostile activity. And they involve active, deliberate avoidance of facts, so by and large you can't call them debunking, either.

Let's make it even simpler, TK. You're asking us to believe that

1. An average, Y2K-unaware MOP stumbled into our board

2. The MOP quickly judged that most of us were technically illiterate, frauds, hypocrites, and Internet hoodlums

3. The MOP is totally, even willfully ignorant of our individual backgrounds, our Y2K history, and Y2K technical and social issues

4. The MOP decided to use asinine and irrelevant ridicule in order "debunk" our opinions of ourselves

5. The MOP is motivated by the pursuit of Truth, Justice and ....

Pardon me a moment. I have to take a barf break.

[SARCASM ON]

So tell us, TK, pray tell: what is the fire in your belly?

[SARCASM /HEAVY]

Why are you doing this, really?

OK, here is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, on my oath as an Average Meme:

Once upon a time I was on the Internet during a lunch hour. I found LUSENET. I found Poole's Roost II. I saw thread titles containing nutball stuff like "New World Order", and it got my interest. When I asked some questions on the forum, I was referred to threads containing Y2K references, which also got my interest. The Y2K references contained nutball stuff like memes, which also got my interest. Quite frankly, I look upon Poole's Roost II as great entertainment. It's fun to converse with people who have such a strange way of looking at the world.

And, OK, hey, maybe I’m the nutball. Maybe, it’s my world that is screwed up. Maybe I should come here for The Word, and go out into The World and spread the Good News about memetics, and how it was validated by those who were “110%” right about Y2K. Shoot, maybe I should even quit my job and don a nun’s outfit. Anything for the cause, right?

Enough. A few weeks ago, I made an offer to Stephen Poole: If he asked me to discontinue posting here, I would. But, if not, I would continue to point out Internet hysteria that seems to have sucked in some people. The offer still stands.

Have a good day.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

And because ... it is fascinating to see a group of people who have totally been sucked in to Internet hysteria, suffered for it (many having given up income, lost jobs, etc.), yet keep on keeping on. Over an issue that is dead, dead, dead. And wasn't that much of a big deal in the first place.

Absolutely ridiculous. You have extrapolated the one instance of cpr claiming he gave up potential income into "many have given up income, lost jobs, etc." Wrong. I doubt you could name one debunker who lost a job due to Y2K, and cpr is the only one who says he gave up potential income. On the other hand, many of the Y2K-doomers did give up income, leave jobs, etc., which is what the debunkers were trying to help people avoid.

As for "memetics." We all know it is a theory. The term "meme" is useful and means about the same thing as idea as in "how did you get that idea?" If you don't like the word meme, then use the word idea.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

BTW, TK, you keep saying that the debunkers weren't experts. I've got news for you. Many of us are experts in various computer-related fields, many of us were Y2K project managers and/or actually fixing code. The Y2K-doomer community was full of the so-called experts of the kind you have made us out to be. You're picking on the wrong crowd fella.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

A truly great example of shallow "sound bit" thinking of a web surfer posting cliches. In fact, one could argue his whole world view is laden with cliches. Considering that I owned an electronics distributorship for 10 years and have consistently reject business plans to re-enter either hardware or software markets would simply complicate his bull shit.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

Here a splendid example of why "originality" in the form of airheaded deforming of a position doesn't count, UNLESS IT IS THE WORK OF A PROPAGANDIST trying to revise history.

The entire Y2K thing appears to have been a "strawman" for the "Y2K debunkers" to promote this memetics quackery. Step One: Find a bunch of people who believe something ridiculous -- in this case, that a computer bug was going to cause the world to end. Step Two: Say that they are "infected" by a "meme", and place a bar bet that the world will not end on Jan 1, 2000. Step Three: After the world does not end, claim that "memetics" has in fact been validated. Nuts. All of it. Nuts.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

Jonathan: Daughter #2 is considering a temporary relocation to one of the Hawaiian Islands, more to see the world than establish a permanent residency. This isn't at all imminent, but I suggested you as a contact if she decided on Maui. Is this okay with you? I haven't provided her with your name or anything yet.

-- Anonymous, September 10, 2001

I would respond but TK is such a freak I can't stop laughing. Are some that STUPID? that naive? that helpless? Guy is probably breeding as well, lol.

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2001

TK,

I realize that I never answered you. (Or at least, I don't think I did.)

EVERYONE is welcome to post here, from trolls to tax protestors. :)

The only things I'll delete are blatant advertising (prohibited by Greenspun himself) and mal-code (from time to time, we'll have some moron post a JavaScript thingie here that gum up the works; I have no choice but to delete them).

You may post here until yore fingerz wear down to nubs.

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2001

Since I'm making an Official Policy Statement (oooo!), I'll clarify this, too.

I do not edit posts (even though I have that ability on the Admin page). Never have, never will. If I think a post is THAT bad, I'll just delete it and send an email explaining why I did it to the poster (provided, of course, that said poster used a real email addy).

I think I've deleted maybe 3 posts since this board began.

Freedom of Speech and all that. This board is essentially unmoderated.

-- Anonymous, September 11, 2001

{Shaking head and sighing}

TK, TK, TK, TK!

A rational person would have read the last four lines of my post and concluded that it was not meant to be answered. But you heroically, quixotically tried to deal with it. In fact, you "answered" questions that were not even questions. And, to no one's surprise, completely avoided the most pointed ones.

But for that I thank you. Sincerely. You have given us living, breathing (one would assume) examples of the ideal doomer mentality. To wit: Damn the facts! Emotional, knee-jerk reactions and egocentric posturing are all the proof you need!

Jonathan shredded one of your petulant outbursts quite effectively in his response above. Doc is probably rolling on the floor laughing with tears in his eyes after that. Your willful ignorance is a priceless treasure--a shining illustration of everything we stood against. I hope you don't change a thing because these exchanges provide rare recreation indeed!

But in the spirit of doomer vs debunker, I'd at least like to give you an opportunity to prove you can construct a logical argument. I propose this: Tell us exactly why you think memetics is so illogical, deficient, vapid, or whatever other failing you can imagine. I would suggest you structure your explanation as a formal argument thus:

Premise + Premise + ... + Premise = Conclusion

Deductive reasoning would be preferred, but I suspect anyone here would accept (and, frankly, be amazed that you could produce) an inductive conclusion.

The only stricture I would apply is that the premises be facts. No simpering ad hominems, no invective, no irrelevant sidebars. An opinion of an expert would be accepted in place of fact, but only if the source is cited. This means you could say something such as,

"Expert X says, '...'; expert Y says, '...'; and fact Z is, '...' Therefore memetics is so internally contradictory that it is useless as a psychological construct."

The experts' opinions and facts should form a chain of logic that lead to the conclusion. We may not agree on the conclusion. But I (we?) would like to hear a cogent, reasoned explanation of why you seem to have this bee in your bonnet about the word meme. (But what if we DO agree? You might be surprised!)

Aw, c'mon, TK. I DARE you!

-- Anonymous, September 12, 2001

Nick--

After WTC, who is a debunker and who is a doomer? This question has nothing to do with y2k.

-- Anonymous, September 13, 2001