No, calling someone a crackpot is rude. Reading your various political positions and categorizing them correctly is true. Calling you conservative in order to try to alleviate the rudeness of having called you liberal would be strange irony.

Of course, liberalism in the US is leftist, so maybe there's a communication break down down under.

Meh. You're a rank and file liberal. I am in fact eccentric, but that speaks to my sense of humor, not my rationality or my day to day living. I get that not everyone finds dark sexual absurdity funny. Pity.

This isn't complicated. If you have a reasonable basis to reject an account (including believing the source isn't credible), then you should reject it. You don't then get to make up something else.

Not believing the official US 9/11 report and declaring that Cheney ordered the attacks are two different things and that I have to point that out indicates an irrational element in your reasoning.

Yep, you're a crackpot under my definition.

You greatly misstate my position. Questioning is not the same as arriving at unsupported and outlandish theories.

I admit to having certain prejudices. Please tell me you're not Dutch.

My criticism was that I didn't know what you were talking about and neither do you. I'm sure of the former, but I'll admit that the latter may be false because of the former, although I am sure the problem of the former lies with you.

To your questions, in order: No, no, yes, not really well, yes, no.

Saying, I want a more comprehensive report about 9/11 is different than the crackpot conclusion that GW orchestrated it.

Wanting reasonable allocations of money for investigations is reasonable . Wanting the same allocation of money for what you think was unreasonable for something that you think reasonable isn't reasonable. Unreasonable decisions ought not be used as binding precedent. If you insist that it should, you're unreasonable.

It's a fair question. The crackpottery of the OP lies not in its incoherence. Plenty of normals skip steps in their explanations. The problem lies in the inability to accept that failure and in defending the irrational as if it were rational.

Your examples were not necessarily all examples of crackpots, but were instead a listing of those conclusions you simply disagreed with. It therefore appeared simply as an arrogant display of personal rightness, and not as a true analysis of crackpottery. I tell you this because you noted you wished to self-evaluate.

I'd place conspiracy theorists, anti-scientists, and half-brains under the crackpot umbrella. A half-brain is a Hanoverian term that describes someone who has mastered academic lingo but only halfway understands what they mean. This person lures a full brain into a conversation that quickly ends in disappointment when the half brain says something revealing.

A crackpot example: I recall a long conversation I had once with a poster who insisted that American jurisprudence was doomed from its inception due to its adherence to the philosophy of J.S. Mill. Not only did he misinterpret Mill, he didn't view the fact that Mill was born after the Constitution was long since written and signed as problematic to his position.

If you get drawn in and pissed off, you are dealing with a crakpot extraordinaire as they say in France. The PoMo movement is healthy in France by the way.

I really wish to apologize. I went through my old posts and realized I failed to formally introduce myself, so let's start over.

I'm Hanover. I enjoy long walks on the beach, snow cones at the fair, and skipping stones across lakes. My favorite food is corn. I like simple puzzles and am endlessly fascinated by those pictures you stare at until the image seems to magically leave the page.

One day when I retire, I hope to move to a small house surrounded by draping trees where I can lie next to Baden and play with his mouth.

Tell me about you. I imagine all of us are not so different around here.

Did you know that Miller High Life is the champagne of beers?

I have no further wish to carry on any kind of discourse with a person that demonstrates so little respect for the members of this forum. — Sapientia

Who, not that.

IS the way of thinking employed here so different to that employed by idealists or Post modernists or anti-abortionists or second amendment advocates or even Trump supporters? This is why psychoceramics is of philosophical interest. — Banno

What do we say of those who can't see the flaw in lumping all who they disagree with into a single catagory of crackpottery and then identifying them with a poster child who they reject as wholeheartedly as you?

This is why psychoceramics is of philosophical interest.

Not so much. More like buying a car repair manual. It's cheaper to DIY.

Wearing nothing but TL's fat purple dance socks, here's what I'm reading:

Art is in the eye of the beholder I suppose, but my read on this one is spot on, and yours superficial. The child's imaginary friend disappeared when his childhood disappeared, but you get entirely diverted by the word "puff" and declare it an ode to marijauna.

Some say the song is about drugs and whatever, but to me it's clearly a sentimental song about little boys growing up.

Tiff, for you:

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess
But I used a little too much force

If your post was deleted because I made a complaint requesting it and if you were banned for your behaviour, how is change possible? — TimeLine

Now there's a shift in mission statement. Our purpose is therapeutic, to bring about personal change through philosophical debate. Would you propose a banning for someone who violated no rule, but for whom such a punishment would provide needed humility?

It just seems you're defining this board's purpose as aiming to provide psychological growth, which I can acknowledge might be a a tertiary byproduct, but not what I'd consider a primary goal. Regardless, interesting perspective.

I'm right leaning, and to be honest, am likely less tolerant than other mods, meaning some behavior allowed now would not be allowed if I were king. The point being, if you're prone to misbehavior, which includes rabble rousing, you would want as few conservatives on your jury as possible.

I do realize the importance, however, in having a jury with diverse worldviews, but you are sadly mistaken if you think I'll be more prone to protect you if we both happen to have voted for the same idiot for president.

A man walks into a bar with a bucket full of grammar rules and everything disintegrates.

True story.

As a moderator, I noted something missing in the poll, so I made a minor change.

At least that ended in a proper death.

I've often thought that the public discussion regarding problem posts and posters diverts us from our mission as a philosophy forum. It's of course really entertaining to see people going at each other's throats, and we can pat ourselves on the back and call ourselves transparent and open minded, but I really do think customer complaints ought not be aired publically. It turns this place into a soap opera.

What I'd expect if I thought my food too cold is a reasonable response ("I'm sorry sir, sushi is supposed to be raw," or "I'm sorry your food took 3 hours, have a free cannoli on the house."), not opening it up to debate and discussion to the other patrons about what proper customer service looks like.

I'm not opposed to soliciting feedback of course, and think a "suggestion box" would serve a purpose, but the public debate about post validity presents an assumption of democratic rule, which will only lead to frustration when the voters realize it simply isn't.

My son's up at UGA. I'm about 50 mins SW from there.

Here's my joke, and I don't know it yet because it's just now coming to me:

A man walks into a bar with a four foot 2 by 4 with a rusty nail jutting out the side. He's out of breath and sweating profusely. The smell of dog feces permeates the room. A beautiful princess sits down at the bar, naked except for the sock that covers her transexuality. A priest staggers in, completely wasted, openly weeping and putting pressure on the open wound in his leg. A horse then walks in, and the bartender says, "why the long face"?

Pretty good joke I think.

What city in Georgia? I'm far enough north of the city that I'd call parts semi-rural. Or, God's country. You could call it that too.

I'm out to make the world substantially better, by promoting communication and mutual understanding. — unenlightened

How's that going for you?

So the philosophical/ethical question is, whether or not harming an organism which lives within the human being, in a beneficial symbiotic relationship, constitute harming the human body. — Metaphysician Undercover

You're use of the term "beneficial" makes moot the preliminary paragraph. If the poison I give you sickens you, it is immoral to give it, regardless of whether it damages your gut flora, your kidneys, or whether it just irritates your throat. If it benefits you, it's not.

Families survived because granny looked after the kids while mum and dad worked. — Banno

As tradition had it, dad went off to work while mom cared for the kids. That granny (as opposed to paw paw) was at home is evidence that that was her traditional role.

I don't harken back to the old days of relegating women to the domestic role, but see that as a shared role. I do believe, though, that the drive to work harder, which results in less parenting, is less driven by survival needs than it is consumerism and the desire for more stuff. The material expectations of the average guy have increased dramatically in my lifetime.

(I don't want this to be confrontational by the way. The main point is for us to listen to you.) — Baden

No worries. If someone posts something controversial, I'll delete it.

That's your elitism and your moral degeneration of the country. — fishfry

And when the British empire dominated, it owed it's success to egalitarianism and a disdain of elitism? Which monarch do you think was the most common?

America is great and has greater days ahead. Counting it out doesn't change things.

I'm writing a book. Here it is so far. I think it has a nice flow:

She so badly wanted that new iron, but as she stared at his gonads, she thought to herself there must be a better way.

If the pillow won't work, maybe the plastic wrap will, although it's so hard to get it to tear cleanly while he's thrashing about.

I can't be expected to find safety pins at 5:00 a.m., especially while I'm vacuuming out the sticky mounds of hair ground into the carpet.

But if I don't cover his arm completely, the dogs will bring it to the playground again and I'll have to give another explanation.

Thoughts?

What does it mean to be real?

Aren't these qualities dependent on you, and what the ice cream cone is in it self quite different. — Cavacava

What the ice cream cone is in itself is an incoherent concept.

The thread is about the last word here, on this thread. Not the last word at the end of the world or even your life. — Sir2u

This is what you want the last word at the end of the world to be? And not me either, but I'm talking about that last word, but now this, now this. Aaaahhh!

I was at a party and someone said shit to my bitch, and I was like wuuut no you diii-uuu, and just as I showed him my sharpened penis that I had to a fine point from rubbing it along the concrete, dude pulls out a gun, jams the shit in my ear (deep in the aural canal near the cochlear and shit), and I'm twisting like a mother fucker trying to prick him with my pokey pecker. He squeezes off a round and my brain goes spraying on the stainless steel refrigerator (Whirlpool 800987 with water and ice dispenser) like a spray of glass cleaner.

I'm just saying I've had a hard day, so let me at least get the big piece of chicken. I mean God damn. At least that.

My point: If fate should have it that you will be the chosen soul to have the last word, don't strive for profound or even loving, but instead for the most divine of all traits. Creativity. The first thing God did was create, after all. Make it your last.

I have been able to build a gun entirely out of rawhide. It shoots frozen marrow pellets. Not only am I able to get it through the metal detector, my puppy Fred Barkowitz will destroy the evidence for me. Even if he doesn't eat the whole thing, no investigator is going to pick up a slimy chewed rawhide. That's way nasty.

If you grew up where I did (I lived under a dumpster where grey dumpster stew would pour into my mouth), you'd understand why I needed a rawhide gun in the airport. I used to fight the rats for food back then, but we fought with our words, not our fists, because we weren't philistines.

One thing we'd calmly discuss back then is what the fuck that last sentence is doing in this already fucked up post. This level of post unpredictabilty further proves the lunacy of climate change (as if we know which way the next poetic wind will blow). Proof of point: I'm standing on my head next time the Pope hands out his crackers at a football game. That'll stop the molestation.

Take everything in your head, stir it up, and piss it out your mouth I always say. Always.