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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (59285)	9/20/2002 6:25:16 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

JC words anywhere can cause emotional harm or benefit. I would think for most self confident people the harm would be minor. And of course people can just leave SI (or a thread on it) and never come back or put people on ignore so the possible harm is more limited then it might otherwise be, but these things do not eliminate the possibility of emotional pain as much as they give someone the ability to avoid a repeat of such pain. Of course even reading a book or seeing a movie can be emotionally painful or beneficial for people. And while SI doesn't have special effects it is more interactive. I remember one person (X?) said books can be interactive too (choose your own adventure books) but the interaction is limited. You can choose different paths but you are not communicating to someone. Your choice do not effect the book (unless you mean the choice to make the physical action to rip it up or burn it). Computer games would be closer but they don't have the potential interactivity that communicating with something that has a real mind would have. Some people might be fooled by a computer program so it could pass the "Touring Test", but I doubt that any computer program could be a frequent poster on SI without people thinking something was wrong with its posts. Even if people did not outright guess "its a computer program", they would probably think the poster was a deranged or mentally handicapped person, and if it regularly posted on this thread, and the thread regulars where told that one poster on the thread was a computer program I would think the they would be able to point it out. Tim

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (59285)	9/20/2002 6:58:19 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

Can you provide an example of an "action" on an SI message board? I was glad to see you ask that question. I was a bit bewildered by the emphasis on the difference between them. It seems to me that we take lots of actions here. All those actions involve words, because "words are all we have." [I've been humming the BeeGee's song since you posted.] All the actions we take involve interpersonal behavior. In contrast, we don't plant bombs, for instance, or vote or hug. We only talk. We may report that we voted or planted a bomb or hugged someone, but we don't take those actions here. The actions we do take include, as I just mentioned, reporting. We also compliment or criticize, support or attack or refrain or withdraw, explain, query, gossip or refrain from gossiping, encourage or discourage, keep secrets or reveal them. Those are all actions performed here, I think. There may be a question of whether we're complimenting a real person or "persona," "alias," "alter," or whatever. But we're still taking the action of complementing. I don't know what the folks who were emphasizing the distinction had in mind. Perhaps something else entirely. But that's what I think.

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (59285)	9/21/2002 9:44:51 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

everyone could split a thousand hairs over the words I have written here if they wanted to [and some will] it is the fiber of BB, the life blood of those who love to debate, argue a point, stimulate themselves, give themselves voice, get heard, what ever it is they get out of doing it and you can pick apart every word I said, twist this point, that one, bring 20 other facets to it, introduce another aspect of it, another one on top of that and on and on - it can go on and on [many times it does] I don't post here often cause I don't like to participate in endless debate that so often turns into prattle - I get very little from it - not that I don't enjoy reading some of the things posted here [key word being some] quite simply I posted that to stand up for a man I think is much maligned here - a man that I know did kind and caring acts in the real world and I think it shows what kind of person he really is - sterling - I wanted to say that do I think 'actions speak louder than words'? yes - and so do many others or why the axiom? or the 'bag of hot air'? it doesn't mean that I think words are meaningless, it mean I think actions carry much more weight than words, and in that respect it does make words cheap is that an absolute? no, nothing is absolute - or black and white add a little common sense to it all and it isn't that hard to grasp what I was saying and yes, words can hurt I'm done with this topic