I know I just got done posting a reply agreeing we should have a moratorium on replies to each other, but since you are considering a break that may have much to do with what went on between us, I figured maybe this would be useful.
Obviously from the other thread, we both have supporters. I actually like your posts most of the time.
Here is my honest "constructive criticism", which you can think about during your hiatus, and then take or leave.:
1) It appears to me that over the course of time you have become more "angry", or "desparate" in your posts. And I don't mean that because of the disagreements we have been having. I actually noticed that before we started having problems.
By this criticism I mean to say that you are quicker to jump to a position and act as if you have been put upon to have read the post you disagree with... and that's near the start of the conversation.
It could very well be the amount of posting you do, or (this happens for me) the waiting around for something to reply to, which gets you in a pent up mood. Kind of like a caged and pacing frog... I mean tiger. This break may help calm your nerves, but it could return, and so something you might want to watch in yourself.
2) You seem concerned to be seen as right. I know you say that about me, but this is not just a slap back. There were an odd number of occassions where you hailed your own brilliance rather specifically. Knowing that you were right on some of these issues, I was still taken back with the declarations. I suppose this is part of the "desparate" thing I was discussing above as well.
You are obviously smart, and you have made really good predictions and arguments. But generalized hyping of yourself, just doesn't seem to be healthy, and perhaps sets yourself up to be more defensive when someone comes in with good arguments against your position.
In other words you have already proven yourself as intelligent and enjoyable, so you don't have to concentrate on how right you are but instead should begin seeking out where you are wrong. Welcome opposition as a challenge to yourself, because you can afford to accept error in order to grow further.
If you feel you are so brilliant there is no room to grow, then there are other problems.
3) This next point comes right from the previous one. And this is going to be very practical. You need more practice in analyzing long arguments and logic. And by this I mean gaining patience with long and perhaps longwinded writings.
If this is all about fun for you, and that certainly isn't fun, then don't do it. However I thought I remember you saying you wanted to get into science, perhaps as a writer of some kind. In that case you need to build up your mental callouses.
You have without question missed some of what I said, and what I was doing, due to an impatience with (and perhaps lack of experience in) analyzing and writing long scientific or legal literature.
This experience can only help you gain in the long term, unless of course it makes you longwinded or complex like me and arach and bill, and so alienate some readers.
Summary: Okay so I got longwinded again. But I wanted to be helpful. At the very least you can see what my evaluation of your style is. Despite our disagreements, I feel you are useful and many times right. As others have said, I tend to read your posts among the first. Obviously I do think you are wrong on some issues, but that is not as important as the "problems" I see cropping up in your writing. You could lose some of the anger, and focus less on how right you have been (you've earned your wings already), to focus on your own deficiencies which requires more patient and practiced analysis of positions and evidence
before replying.
The tiger...uh frog... needs to stop pacing, ready to leap as the door is opened, and instead lie back and watch what people are really doing outside that cage, get to know them deeper than what you need for immediate attack, and letting them come in where you can maul them even better.
Sacrifice speed and number of responses, to gain in overt quality of responses, and more importantly the ability to analyze onesself and others to a greater depth.
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
™ Version 4.2
