carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (05/10/85)
In article <> janet@cbosgd.UUCP (Janet) writes: > >I find it strange that Dan's articles always make it to cbosgd, cbscc, utzoo, >alice and so-on, but no reply is heard from most of his opponents when their >positions begin to look untenable (when I made this point to dan, he insisted >that one of the reasons that Carnes dropped out of the discussion on marxist >metaphysics was that any further discussion would probably require regurgita- >ting huge excerpts from Hegel, but that doesn't explain the rest). You can't draw any conclusions from silence on the net. Most of us have little time for the netnews, especially if the topics being discussed are not directly related to our studies or profession. (A good thing, too -- otherwise there would be 500 articles/day in net.politics alone.) As a grad student in econ, Dan seems to derive more marginal utility from writing articles for net.politics* than most of us. I was under the impression that *Dan* had dropped out of that discussion because he had been soundly thrashed. Oh well -- I'm sure Janet believes that her hero trounced the opposition, and I'm touched by her hero-worship. Richard Carnes
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (05/14/85)
>You can't draw any conclusions from silence on the net. Most of us >have little time for the netnews, especially if the topics being >discussed are not directly related to our studies or profession. >Richard Carnes In this case, I have to agree with Carnes. If I made reasonable answer to even the most egregious of the misinformative, unthinking or just plain wrong postings found here, I'd have to borrow time like the gov't does money. Most discussions seem to peter out when both (or all) sides are convinced they have gotten the better of the others, or realize they don't have the time to invest in what is, after all, a completely useless argument. Since, like all political argumentation, netnews diatribes consist of only the shallowest of thought mixed with lots of emotional blabbermouthing, it's silly to form one's opinion, or to consider it vindicated, from what appears here. --JoSH