Well then, you've come with a good judgment.
When your goal is popularity, by making the place safe for the average moron to enter and spew his guts without having to justify or even understand his views, then what you get is a cacophony of dimwits crying out the scripture, fearlessly confident that nobody will expose their idiocy because the "lords of the flies" will keep the flyswatters at bay.
It is a usual phenomenon.
Quantity over quality is preferred, in a display of modernistic worshiping of the conforming oneness.
To be obsessed with belonging so much that any large group will do, because there getting lost tin the crowd saves you from having to look at yourself.
Look as Fausty, the resident douche-bag, with what glee he banns anyone who threatens all-inclusion or the emotional welfare of the obtuse, and how happily he falls into his role as hound-dog on the farm.
His only purpose in life is to be liked, and playing the D.J who is supposed to keep the house a'rockin' fill him with pride, because, as he's admitted, he's no philosopher, nor does he think anyone over there merits the name.
He's read philosophy and in comparison to his mind and with those he finds around him and comfort him with their simplicity, he's decided that the only thing left to do is share a few insights on what others have said, regurgitate some "facts" and "statistics" and then listen to personal attentions about matters of daily living, and last but not least, to have a good time with friendly banter, flirting, and the easy exchange of nonsense.
Where else can someone ask:
"Does nothing exist?" or start a thread on the difference between spirit and soul without having to face the assault of reason or the insult of being exposed as a simpleton?
But in an all-inclusive" arena, where love thy neighbor is the underlying dogma, and that all deserve respect is the basic principle, all is allowed, because nothing faces the natural consequences all actions entail.
As a perfect microcosm of the macro, this forum, along with most others, functions as a club-house for the inane.
It finds its self-esteem in the numbers they are pulling in, and pities those who cannot match them in popularity.
You've been to high-school, right?
Who but the most pretentious, materialistic, superficial and stupid were popular?
Did they not feel pride in being widely known and admired in the school amongst their peers?
Did not most want to be like them and belong to their clique?
Did they not have the best parties?
It's like I said elsewhere, it depends on what your motive is.
If your motive is to include as many individuals into the conversation, irrespective of quality, then it should not surprise you if the event deteriorates down to the level of the least-common-denominator, where all threads are eventually diverted by the influx of moronic commentary and everything falls into the cesspools of sexual innuendos.
I am a great believer, along with Hitchens, that too much has already been surrendered in the name of peace and conformity to the imbeciles.
The idea that all deserve attention or respect makes democracy a slow decline, if it were not for the fact that there is no real democracy applied anywhere.
But these morons on ILP insist on applying the theory, discovering, if they ever admit it, that this open forum where no repercussions to being obtuse are allowed entry inevitably settles upon the mediocre.
It is best to live in solitude, silently observing, than to be surrounded with the white-noise of aimless, superficial chatter.
If you have nothing to say, why would you open your mouth and reveal the emptiness in your mind?
And if you think that you do have something interesting to say then why would you expect to be respected no matter what comes out of your trap?
The latter would only condemn you to a life convinced that your beliefs make sense.
If there be truly a "handful of fine thinkers" over there, then they are either too scared to prove their minds where they will be offered no benefit of the doubt simply because they are human and have mastered the art of speaking, or their genius remains comfortably settled within the limitations of their social and cultural upbringing, making them dull and making everything they say a more eloquent variation of the same old "self-evident" mythologies.
The only rule here, and this is more for the sake of efficiency, is that no matter what you post that it be in reference to the thread's topic, or must, at least, include some aspect in regards to it.
Insults only bother those who fear that they might be accurate, and are reluctant to face this possibility and deal with it, either by accepting it or by rectifying it.
There's no growth without stress.
Look inside a gym....what do you see?
Self-imposed pain and suffering, directed towards a goal.
Nobody changes if they do not have to; if the consequences of changing do not outweigh, in their own mind, the costs and the risks of attempting change.
Remember Frank's "What does not kill me can only serve to make me stronger".
Those given the benefit of the doubt, or the possibility of simply "agreeing to disagree" are never placed in a situation of having to either change, evolve, or perish, become extinct.
So they exist in a sheltering perpetual bliss.
They don't have to adapt and so they don't.
They latch onto any myth or idea that comforts them existentially to socially and they suckle on it, like a baby does a pacifier. No nutrition is to be taken; no milk comes out....only the comforting action of sucking on an artificial teet.
Too much benefit of the doubt and civility has been offered to stupidity.
Those in power might like it, since their power depends on the propagation of stupidity, and forums like ILP only serve in this regard this trend, but stupidity in numbers can be dangerous.
As dangerous as stampeding buffalo. Mindless, thick, beasts, simply running in accordance with the herd, leveling everything in their path.
No matter what they say it is not harmless to humor an imbecile or to protect his emotions by keeping your real opinions to yourself.
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