The Masked Zebra reminds me of http://cleverbot.com/
: )
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@>
> wrote:
> >
> > -- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote:
>
> >
> > Robin2: You have, then, answered Bob Price: for you have judged his post to
> > be
> devoid of substance or truth. His posts were not answered then because, try as
> you might, you could not sense anything sincerely felt or intellectually
> articulated that went to what was important. I think it is good to have made
> this clarification: viz "He was being a dick to a stranger on the internet".
> Bob
> Price's unanswered posts were, then, unworthy of a response. I would like, for
> my own purposes, to know what set of criteria you morally or psychologically
> apply to make this determination: As for example, you deemed my post something
> to be answered, not Bob Price's.
> >
> > What is it about this post in particular which puts it in another category
> from those two posts from Bob Price?
>
>
> Curtis3: I just want to note that after being kinda clear about my lack of
> interest in
> this subject you have doubled down with a few paragraphs, including suggesting
> that you post Bob's insults again to stick them in my face. And of course I
> can't control what you write but is this really friendly? Is this how you
> react
> to all your friend's preferences?
>
> Robin4: I mist have misinterpreted those two posts. I took them to be a moral
> and intellectual challenge; not just "Bob's little FU to all things Curtis".
> If they had been what you have characterized them here in this post, *I would
> have recognized this for myself*, and would have, had I been your friend,
> urged you not to answer them. Because they were not worthy of being answered.
> I have no bias one way or the other: I don't forge alliances in order to
> alter my own moral responsibilities: If Tom Brady does something dirty, I
> don't, because I root for the Patriots and like Brady as a person, given him
> a bye and judge him differently from how I would judge James Harrison of the
> Steelers, who I don't particularly like and think it is dirty player. When I
> read the first of those two posts I refer to, I thought: Wow: Curtis can
> really show what he is made of here by answering this putdown of himself.
>
> When you just blew this off with some comment like: "That was the most
> disgusting post I have read at FFL" (or words to this effect), I was
> appalled, shocked, stupefied. Because I have noticed that whenever Judy
> criticizes you, you come right back at her. But even in this case, you
> sometimesat suspiciously significant junctures in your dialogues with hergo
> silent, and refuse to take a stand which would enable the reader of this feud
> to know you have the confidence to stand up to Judynot as an adversary, but
> in terms of the form of her arguments against what you have written.
>
> In order to comprehend how you can walk away from those two posts, Curtis, I
> would have to have some kind of experience in reading those posts which would
> make your decision understandable to me in terms of not being a dishonourable
> act {which I deem it to be in the absence of an kind of reasonable
> explanation]. You can of course, as you do here, define those posts as just
> "Bob's little FU to all things Curtis"'; but this peremptory fiat does not
> make of them what you say they are. There has to be some kind of agreement
> between your judgment of those posts and what they really are independent of
> your saying what they are. Should one interpret and define those posts
> according to what you say they are here? Is that the last word? No, Curtis,
> you can choose to rule them out of order, declaring there is nothing there
> worthy of taking notice; but then the question comes in: Is Curtis's
> appraisal of Bob Price's critical posts about him congruent with what in fact
> is the objective nature of these Bob Price posts?
>
> And if in this case you are correct, then the fault is all in me: since I
> took those posts to merit, to demand, to require an answer. You don't even
> try to defend your interpretation of them here as not deserving your
> attention: they in their very nature did not warrant you taking any notice of
> them. But you never explain why; you just arbitrarily legislate your own
> reality, and we are all left with only one option: either we accept Curtis's
> characterizing of these two posts of Bob Price, or we don't. But you never
> give any basis for us to make this decision, so I think most of the readers
> at FFL, because of your reputation, simply concur with youYou see, Curtis,
> they have never entered into any process by which they could justify your
> decision not to respond to those posts. And they still haven't, even as Steve
> is certain that you have scored big time.
>
> I find this an abdication of your moral responsibility, and if you don't see
> this, then that is in itself an extraordinary indictment of you.
>
> I am still waiting to hear an argument that makes sense of this, Curtis.
>
> Evidently, being Curtis, you don't have to explain or justify your judgments
> of people, of posts: if you say it is so, then it is so. I don't find myself
> following in lock-step with this. I read Bob Price's posts, and sure, I am
> taken aback at their audacity, their harshness; but I keep reading to the
> end, and I come out of the experience with the unavoidable conclusion: There
> is much substance in this; Curtis will have to address this. But you walk
> away muttering that Bob Price has said nothing about you which merits any
> kind of response. Well, Curtis, for that to be the case, it must mean that
> both these posts could be read by a third partyperhaps someone who knows
> neither you nor Bob Priceand deemed to be unworthy of being taken seriously.
> Do you believe this is the case, Curtis? If those two posts were dug up and
> reposted here, do you think you could justify having taken the position that
> you have?
>
> No, Curtis, you just don't get where your own predilections and self-asserted
> prerogatives run up against reality, and where reality has some say in the
> extent to which you are justified in asserting those predilection and
> prerogatives and then imposing them on usand therefore on reality. There is
> a very important point here: Curtis has essentially told all of us readers
> at FFL that Bob Price's two posts are irrelevant and even frivolous: they do
> not go to any critical issues with regard to Curtis. I Curtis will make this
> decision on your behalf, and then you can simply be spared any further
> difficulty in reconciling what I Curtis has decided these posts are with
> whatever might have been your (the reader's) first experience of what they
> were. I doubt that anyone but your most loyal supporters would have
> immediately had the same take on these two posts as you are telling us was
> your take on them, Curtis.
>
> On the contrary: You did notthis is my conclusion at leastchoose to answer
> either of those posts because you *couldn't* answer them. Now that is my
> position, Curtis, and for you to get me off of that position you will have to
> construct some kind of argument; not legislate what I have said out of
> existence. Does my analysis here simply invalidate itself like Bob Price's
> posts did?
>
> Curtis3: I have to ask myself why? Even in casual acquaintance situations if
> a person
> mentions a preference like this it would be respected. If I was sitting next
> to
> someone at a lunch counter and said I would not like a sticky bun, but thanks
> for offering it, the usual reaction is not to grab an icing dripping treat and
> shove it into my face.
>
> Robin4: Bob Price was calling you out for being disingenuous and
> manipulative: of course you would prefer that he not do thisand you would
> prefer that no one remind you about this. But the issue, Curtis, is not your
> preference that these posts never be discussed again because you don't like
> the sensation they cause inside of you when they are mentioned (sticky buns);
> the issue is to what extent those two posts addressed you in some
> authentically real and pertinent way. You have sidestepped this issue
> altogether. This is incredible to me that you don't see this. Take what I
> have written so far in this post: If you write that you don't like what I
> have said and you don't want anyone to bring up what Robin has written, does
> that therefore constituteyour saying thisa moral ground upon which to stand
> that supersedes in its importance the arguments I have made so far in this
> post? Apparently for you this is the case, Curtis, for I find nothing
> different in principle here from what you have chosen to say is the way
> reality must behave according to how you have fielded those unpleasant and
> vexing posts.
>
> I don't think you get this at all, Curtis; this is your blind spot. And it
> represents an impediment to a real friendship. Which is why it is being
> discussed now. If I felt you were just deceitfully and dishonestly rigging
> things in a way which you knew was wrong, and you therefore had a guilty
> conscience, that would be one thing; but I actually believe you think you are
> right. This is what astounds me. Because, if you really were consciously
> culpable in this regard, you would not make the argument you make here,
> which, as you can see form how I have deconstructed it, is no argument at
> all.
>
> Curtis3: So what is it that makes you so hell bent on shoving my face in
> Bob's little FU
> to all things Curtis?
>
> Robin4: Only one thing, Curtis: truth, reality, justice. I admit to being
> shocked by Bob Price's first postwhich you found "disgusting". But I never
> conceived of the possibility that you would not reply to him, and defend
> yourself. You never, to repeat, explained the existential basis of walking
> away from this challenge to your integrity. I was not "shoving [your] face in
> Bob's little FU": if Bob Price's post had been just that: "a little FU" I
> would have recognized this and would have urged you, had you asked me, not to
> respond. I have only raised the matter of these posts because in the manner
> in which you have refused to address them, you give evidence of their
> validity. Get it, Curtis?
>
> Curtis3: You must believe that somehow you know what it best for me, my
> growth. In fact
> later on you are going to make it quite clear that you feel that I am not
> handling the feedback areas of my life properly and need a little school'n
> from
> someone who knows better than I do what is good for me. You will attempt to
> make
> the case that unassisted by your superior powers of discernment for what is
> good
> for me, I lack the ability to learn anything about myself.
>
> Robin4: Well, Curtis, in the classroom, if someone tells you, the teacher, to
> FO based upon an unfavourable assessment you have given of one of their
> presentations, does that then end the matter? And if you choose to ask them
> to become responsible for what you deem to be a shoddy performance, does that
> mean that pupil can do what you are doing here, and simply say: Don't shove
> this in my face! I have decided your failing mark does not concern me. So
> let's just move on, Mr M.
>
> I disagree with you in what you say here that I am putting myself in the
> position to "know what is best for me, my growth"and you are not "handling
> the feedback areas of my lfie properly and need a little school'n from
> someone who knows better than I do what is good for me": WRONG, CURTIS. I am
> not, arbitrarily or compulsively or mischievously, or therapeutically, or
> didactically seeking to make you a better person in the way you have accused
> me of doing. It is not this at all, Curtis: it is merely a matter of where,
> in your actions (actions here being defined by your judgments and opinions
> and determinations made on FFLsome of which touch me personally), you end up
> creating an influence, an effect, which interferes with the lines of
> objective and innocent understanding.
>
> News Flash: I have just been informed of the death of Christopher Hitchens:
> 62. This is a major event. And it immediately creates a perfect touchstone
> for me, as I think, ironically enough, that this was a great soul. I won't go
> any further than this, except to say that a heroic person has been taken from
> us the living. And am suddenly quite affected by an emotion which does not
> necessarily coincide with what I am attempting to do here, Curtis, in
> answering your post. Whew: his death has created an effect which is palpable.
>
> Curtis3: I hope you will consider this feedback in the manor you suggest I
> lack. What is
> up with this behavior to someone you say you want to be friendly with? Can you
> relate to me as an equal?
>
> Robin4: Nope; it is strange thing; but I think, given the impact of the death
> of this remarkable human being that I must break off here. I will post this.
> And then return to this post sometime later, because the issue before me
> right now, and one that I cannot set aside, is the death of this person that
> I respected so much. Even as our beliefs about ultimate matters differed
> considerably. Christopher was dead right on Iraqamong many things. And, I
> believe, Bill Clinton too. I wish that I could have known him personally. We
> will have to wait to see what his fate was until we undergo what he has just
> undergone. I salute you at least in this, Curtis: I know you will be in
> agreement with me about Christopher Hitchens: this really is a tragedy.
>
