Purpose of Skeptic vs Proponent Discussions Forum

I was a fan of Arouet's style of posting.

I hope the "sceptics" here will be more active for a more balanced debate.  They all seemed a little quiet on Skeptiko.

Well they were marginalized and then removed altogether. Only Malf remains of the original band. I vacillated between wanting Linda removed and thinking she should stay. But when she was gone I realized what a mistake it was to be without her voice, at the very least in the Critical Discussion area. Skeptiko soon became an echo chamber. Skeptical voices are required on a site like this to provide a counterbalance. People like Steve001 I can do without because there is no intelligence behind their posts. They are just shills for a movement. But Linda had a brain and she applied it to the posts at Skeptiko and the forum was poorer without her.

Linda... I wasn't really sorry to see her go. Shortly before being booted we had a conversation where she failed to understand some (very) basic concepts of her purported line of work. I doubted that she was an M.D. after that. And as I recall, so did a few others. False credentials and appeal to authority are a form of manipulation, which is a big "no" for me.

I also suspected her of lying. But the majority of her posts didn't rest on her authority as a doctor. If you went back through her history from mind-energy forward you can see her making various claims, like that she made her own textiles and was an authority on ancient fabrics (during a discussion on the shroud, of course) or the bombshell that she was a natural lucid dreamer and could lucid dream at will and for as long as she desired. 

But my point all along (except for a few occasions when I was just fed up with her) is that the forum is made richer with a diversity of opinions AND PERSONALITIES. There is as much to learn by watching human interaction on the forum as there is from the content.

By the time that Linda was ousted, she was an M.D., OBEr, that could manufacture her own textiles, knew everything about ancient fabrics and could summon lucid dreams... Clearly the most interesting woman in the world. ;-)

I hope the "sceptics" here will be more active for a more balanced debate.  They all seemed a little quiet on Skeptiko.

Well they were marginalized and then removed altogether. Only Malf remains of the original band. I vacillated between wanting Linda removed and thinking she should stay. But when she was gone I realized what a mistake it was to be without her voice, at the very least in the Critical Discussion area. Skeptiko soon became an echo chamber. Skeptical voices are required on a site like this to provide a counterbalance. People like Steve001 I can do without because there is no intelligence behind their posts. They are just shills for a movement. But Linda had a brain and she applied it to the posts at Skeptiko and the forum was poorer without her.

Thank you for your useful comments Chuck. I look at Skeptiko every once in a while to see if the discussions have improved, so I saw what happened and found out about this forum. Even though it came out of the blue and under some duress, I think this is a good move.

Linda

By the time that Linda was ousted, she was an M.D., OBEr, that could manufacture her own textiles, knew everything about ancient fabrics and could summon lucid dreams... Clearly the most interesting woman in the world. ;-)

That's a very sad threshold, if true. A site like Skeptiko is going to attract experiencers (I certainly wasn't the only one there). Lots of people have an occupation (although the prevalence may be lower among the population of "people who waste their time on internet forums"). So also having a hobby I'm passionate about makes me so unusual that you find it unbelievable? You need to get out more. ;-)

Linda

The quoting system here leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm so glad you've joined this new forum, Linda. I noticed Arouet had joined the defunct and short-lived LP. So perhaps he will join here as well.

The quoting system here leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm so glad you've joined this new forum, Linda. I noticed Arouet had joined the defunct and short-lived LP. So perhaps he will join here as well.

Arouet signed up here five days ago.

By the way, the simplest way to quote a post is to to click the reply rather than quote button.

The quoting system here leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm so glad you've joined this new forum, Linda. I noticed Arouet had joined the defunct and short-lived LP. So perhaps he will join here as well.

Arouet signed up here five days ago.

Well then I guess we are a true community once more. Looking forward to some good discussions.

By the time that Linda was ousted, she was an M.D., OBEr, that could manufacture her own textiles, knew everything about ancient fabrics and could summon lucid dreams... Clearly the most interesting woman in the world. ;-)

That's a very sad threshold, if true. A site like Skeptiko is going to attract experiencers (I certainly wasn't the only one there). Lots of people have an occupation (although the prevalence may be lower among the population of "people who waste their time on internet forums"). So also having a hobby I'm passionate about makes me so unusual that you find it unbelievable? You need to get out more. ;-)

Linda

Not at all, though I suppose that after all this time you are probably into rocket science and most certainly authored a sonata as well.