Ill get my coat!

[woodpecker]

A good selection of talking heads.

(Did anyone notice the weaving equipment behind Heinberg?)

[Ludwig]

Bored with life. Didn't succeed. Thank the Lord. For small mercies....

"I think that dog's got a sixth sense of humour." I thought that line was cryptic and possibly quite profound, until I realised I'd misheard it.

[UndercoverElephant]

Stop whining woodpecker, ignore any post you don't like or agree with.

Any forum where everyone is completely in agreement is dead.

So suck it up and stop being such a cry baby,

This is rubbish, Doomsday. There is no shortage of non-troll difference of opinion on this board. A very wide range of political opinions are expressed. A wide range of ethical and religious opinions are represented (Christians, skeptics, idealistic atheists, mystics...) We have people who believe in grand conspiracies, and others who reject this as nonsense. We have people who think modern civilisation can be rescued and others who believe we are going to return to the stone age. We have pro-nuclear people and anti-nuclear people, people who believe solar has a grand future and people who believe it will never be cheap enough. We have gold bugs and people who think the gold bugs are being silly because you can't eat gold. We have people who think climate change is the greatest threat to humanity and people who think it isn't happening at all.

But the one thing everybody here ought to agree about is that we have passed or are close to passing the peak in production of conventional oil, and that this is going to force a radical change in the way we live our lives. Firstly there are no remaining grounds for denying that we are at, or close to, the peak. Secondly, it is painfully obvious that the consequences of peak oil are going to be very serious indeed. Do we really need a person whose only purpose for being here is to ridicule anybody who believes in the thing which prompted this board to be created in the first place???

ETA: maybe there is a case for also saying there is no place for climate change denialism on this board but it is probably true that climate change is a considerably more complex and considerably less cut-and-dried issue (in terms of whether or not it is happening and what the likely consequences will be). It is also the case that climate change, unlike peak oil, is not the reason this board was created.

[frank_begbie]

The ethical question is very disturbing. Would I kill a person weaker than me in order to survive?

I've said this before, but what depresses me most is not so much the prospect of dying, as the fact that while the going was good, my life was so shit.

That made me laugh.

So its not all bad

[Ludwig]

The ethical question is very disturbing. Would I kill a person weaker than me in order to survive?

I've said this before, but what depresses me most is not so much the prospect of dying, as the fact that while the going was good, my life was so shit.

That made me laugh.

So its not all bad

I'm obviously a better comedian than I thought...

[Silas]

[stumuzz]

Anyone remember Vortex?

Yes and he is badly missed. Funny, intelligent, incisive and a esoteric sense of humour that I liked.

From listening to his radio broadcasts and newspaper interviews he seems to be putting his money and lifestyle where his mouth is! Good luck to him.

Hope he pops back soon.

[clv101]

I'm with the Woodpecker. I really don't like the idea of banning people but there's no doubt that this forum would be a better place if RGR and An Inspector Calls were not here. They have time and again been shown to be destructive of sensible discussion. Time to go.

This is the logic of the censorious: don't like an argument? Then ban it. I don't like RGR or AIC any more than you do, but chucking people off discussion lists isn't the way to go. What next - banning climate change deniers? And then what - people who don't recycle enough? It's a slippery slope. Just ignore him and eventually he'll get bored. Don't feed the troll.

I'm involved in a few on-line forums, all other forums I use are far less tolerant than we have been here. It is clear that forums tend to work better with stricter moderation than we have.

[frank_begbie]

The ethical question is very disturbing. Would I kill a person weaker than me in order to survive?

I've said this before, but what depresses me most is not so much the prospect of dying, as the fact that while the going was good, my life was so shit.

That made me laugh.

So its not all bad

I'm obviously a better comedian than I thought...

I've actually put it in my signature on another forum.

In my minds eye, I can visualize Bill Hicks actually saying this on stage.

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

That made me laugh.

So its not all bad

I'm obviously a better comedian than I thought...

I've actually put it in my signature on another forum.

In my minds eye, I can visualize Bill Hicks actually saying this on stage.

Oh c'mon!

Maybe Woody Allen, but not Bill! Bill was all about the love and the positivity, remember he was the guy who got up on stage with terminal cancer and still made people laugh and not at him.

[Kentucky Fried Panda]

Adios ladies and gentleman. RGR and his ilk are at the point of 'victory'. I certainly don't post much now and it IS due to the malign influence of trolls.

When they go, I come back. They are malignant, no other word for it. Mods,. grow some balls.

We should have a delete profile button so when people flounce off they can do it properly!

[caspian]

I'm involved in a few on-line forums, all other forums I use are far less tolerant than we have been here. It is clear that forums tend to work better with stricter moderation than we have.

I'm not sure what you mean by "work better". It's more like "help to reinforce a narrower worldview". Different people have different ideas about where the lines are drawn. On other forums the moderation is so heavy-handed that the merest hint of disagreement or controversy will bring a ban down on the miscreant's head. It's a shame that some people are so offended by high-spirited arguments or occasional trolling.

I occasionally frequent a different forum that has almost no moderation at all and it works fine. For me it comes down to an overriding principle of free expression, within certain obvious limits, like no posting of death threats or illegal material.

[frank_begbie]

I'm obviously a better comedian than I thought...

I've actually put it in my signature on another forum.

In my minds eye, I can visualize Bill Hicks actually saying this on stage.

Oh c'mon!

Maybe Woody Allen, but not Bill! Bill was all about the love and the positivity, remember he was the guy who got up on stage with terminal cancer and still made people laugh and not at him.

Yes you're spot on there mate.
Woody Allen to a tee.

I can definitely hear him saying it.

[biffvernon]

For what it's worth folks, I would still be a regular contributor if it wasn't for the likes of RGR, JSD and An Inspector Calls.

They have been a divisive influence on this forum for some time, a fact that I raised with Biff in a PM (to no avail) some months ago.

Cheers, Aurora.

Indeed but I'm not a mod so I think you pmd the wrong guy

There is clearly a substantial number people calling for the trolls to be banned and some who have left the forum or are saying they will if things don't change. We do seem to have reached a crisis.

And yet there seems to be complete silence from the mods, whoever they are. Can we have some reasoned explanation and action from the mods please before the forum dies and victory is conceded to the trolls?

[Aurora]

I'm involved in a few on-line forums, all other forums I use are far less tolerant than we have been here. It is clear that forums tend to work better with stricter moderation than we have.

I'm not sure what you mean by "work better". It's more like "help to reinforce a narrower worldview". Different people have different ideas about where the lines are drawn. On other forums the moderation is so heavy-handed that the merest hint of disagreement or controversy will bring a ban down on the miscreant's head. It's a shame that some people are so offended by high-spirited arguments or occasional trolling.

I occasionally frequent a different forum that has almost no moderation at all and it works fine. For me it comes down to an overriding principle of free expression, within certain obvious limits, like no posting of death threats or illegal material.

Agreed, but unlike RGR, JSD and AIC, most contributors on this forum aren't diametrically opposed to the general concepts of PO and CC as they appear to be.

My feeling towards the three trolls can be summed up by a couple of lines from the poem, Desiderata:

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant, they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.