Aphorism of the Day: We gaze at our navel because its closer and easier to shave than our asshole.
And the answer to the identity half of the question is:
Oh, I don’t know. Out of nearly 7 billion people, I’m fortunate to be in the top 1% in the planet with regards to health, wealth, looks, brains, athleticism, and nationality. My wife is slender, beautiful, lovable, loyal, fertile, and funny. I meet good people who seem to enjoy my company everywhere I go. That all seems pretty lucky to me, considering that my entire contribution to the situation was choosing my parents well. I am grateful and I thank God every day for the ticket He has dealt me. If I’m not a birth lottery winner, then who is? The kid in the Congo who just got his hands chopped off and is getting raped for the fourth time today? To paraphrase the immortal parental wisdom of PJ O’Rourke, anyone in my position had damn well better get down on their knees and pray that life does not become fair.
In other words, God. It has been Ordained.
And the answer to the belief half of the question is:
As for belief, I don’t concern myself in the slightest with the perfect correspondence of my beliefs with What Is So or not. They either do or they don’t, but regardless, the Absolute Truth of Creation doesn’t depend upon what I happen to believe it to be at the moment and I don’t think such correspondence is even theoretically possible. Bakker simply doesn’t understand that I don’t believe his opinion, my opinion, or anyone else’s opinion matters in the least, except in how they happen to affect our decisions and subsequent actions. See Human Action for details.
By way of clarification, no one asked him about the ‘absolute’ of anything. I’m not sure I understand, otherwise (and would welcome clarification). Is he saying he doesn’t believe in the question? Or is he saying the truth or falsity doesn’t matter, so long as people do what he wants them to do? Or is he actually biting the bullet, saying, ‘I really don’t know whether my claims are right or wrong, but I don’t care one way or another, so long as people seem to believe me.”
Or is he simply avoiding the question once again.
Now, if I were a follower of Theo, I would like to know what the hell he’s talking about. Why should they take someone who doesn’t care about the accuracy of his views of faith seriously? Or, if he does take the accuracy (as opposed to the consequences) of his claims seriously, why should they trust the claims of someone who doesn’t take the likelihood they are wrong seriously.
One of the things that seems to make democracy such an effective form of governance, for instance, is its capacity for reform, for adapting to new social realities. It’s ugly, it’s prone to error, but the institution is designed to eventually get it right.
One of the ironies that always had me scratching my head following Theo’s blog was the tension between his dogmatism and his purported libertarianism. A libertarian like Michael Shermer, for instance, is skeptical of government’s ability to manage society independent of markets for much the same reason he’s skeptical of an individual’s ability to magically stumble upon the truth independent of (natural) science: humans are just not smart enough to master the supercomplexities involved. Centrally planned economies fail, on this account, because all things being equal, the solution to a distribution problem enacted by a ‘Red Director’ will be wrong, whereas the market not only generates a plurality of possible solutions, it also selects the one or ones that actually solve the problem.
This could be why democracy and capitalism at the social institutional level have so outstripped their competitors: creative flexibility in the face of supercomplexity. All I want to suggest to Theo and to any of his readers who happen to find this post is that skepticism (and it’s social incarnation, science) is the cognitive analogue to democracy and capitalism.
The reason science has so outstripped its competitors boils down to creative flexibility in the face of supercomplexity. Multiple researchers with multiple hypotheses, embedded in a system that selects for accuracy. You never ‘go all in’ – rather, you hedge your bets, always realizing the complexity of things is such that you could very well lose. And you listen closely to those making contrary bets around you, realizing that they are at least as likely to be holding the winning hand as you.
In the case of each, democracy, capitalism, science, the process is messy and complicated, two things that cut against our stone age psychology. We despise uncertainty. Very little is pretty close up with these institutions: the grandeur and the power only reveal themselves when you take a big step back.
So given this, the best answer to the Question, I think, would be something along the lines of: “I think I’ve won the Magical Belief and Identity Lottery because more and more research seems to indicate that humans are hardwired to do so, even though odds are I’m just as duped as the next guy. I’m ‘programmed’ to fool myself.”
This answer at least possesses the virtues of remaining open to further scientific scrutiny, and explaining why the idiots who disagree with you seem to be just as convinced of their idiocy as you are of your brilliance.
So Theos subjective desires are the ultimate work of a sky fairy? The fact that his ‘perfect’ life is nothing but that and its all thanks to God? As much as his posts piss me off Mr Bakker, the bastard should give himself a little credit; he’s an inbelievable c-nt and can attribute that to himself only.
All the more reason to put his feet to the fire.
Dear Mr Bakker,
I have to disagree with your analogy between scepticism and empirical science. The epistemic foundation of mathematized science, since its advent in the early 17th century, has never been scepticism. The reasonable belief that any of our theories might be false is not a sceptical assessment (or better: working-hypothesis) as such, but a fallibilist one.
And while scientists are never logically justified to be certain of any theory or even entity they scrutinise (because there is no inductive logic), they are in fact – and reasonably so – fairly certain about a lot of them. Pessimistic Meta-Induction notwithstanding, there is no physicist today who seriously doubts the empirical adequateness or (if he is a realist) the verisimilitude of general relativity. But even taken for granted that GTR might prove empirically inadequate or even outright false at some point (which is, of course, possible), it seems very implausible for many measurable numerical values and relational properties (such as, for example, the speed of light, the gravitational attraction between masses, the elementary charge, or the astoundingly accurate values measured for the Quantum Hall effect) to ever (!) change. In terms of such measurements and relational (or structural) properties, most scientists seem to hold views that border on certainty. [This is, by the way, where structural realism in the philosophy of science comes from - I paraphrase: scientific theories may change, but some principal structures always stay the same and they are what holds the truth about reality.]
This is nothing new, of course, and even T S Kuhn characterises ‘normal science’ as a kind of orthodoxy. Kuhn’s model of scientific ‘progress’ is directed against accumulative concepts of knowledge. But contrary to many of his disciples from sociology and (social-)constructivist philosophy, he makes a case for – pragmatic – criteria of theory choice. NOT everything goes. Not all momentous decisions in science are determined by mob-psychology, biased perception, or arbitrary circumstances.
As staunch sceptics (in a pyrrhonian sense) we would have to suspend judgement on any and all scientific theories – a behavioural rule which scientists obviously do not follow…
Now, I don’t know how post-modern your own stance in the philosophy of science is (you seem, excuse me, pretty post-modern in many other respects). But from your latest entry I get the impression that you regard empirical science as epistemically distinguished (positively!) from other pursuits for knowledge. This stance – a rather (at least in my opinion) self-evident one, given the history of science and technology – today is no longer generally accepted, and social constructivists do their best to ‘discredit’ scientific validity claims on all kinds of (real or imagined) grounds. I am not making a case for scientific realism, but even anti-realists, empiricists or instrumentalists acknowledge, that science is getting something ‘right’ where others consistently fail.
My point is that you have to decide whether you want to be a (pyrrhonian) sceptic or a champion of science. You are trying to be both, which is impossible in my opinion. Of course, I might have misinterpreted your reference to scepticism, and I might have over-estimated your singularisation of science. But since cognitive as well as social bias is so important to you and we only know about such bias through science, I think that – post-modernism aside – you have a – very likeable – conservative stance on scientific epistemology.
But if this is the case, then you can not be an epistemological sceptic.
Actually, what I think you’ve done is bought into a theory of What Science Is. If you’re right about fallibilism being the essence of science, then I think you may have a strong argument, if – that is – I was a pyrrhonian skeptic, which I am not. My favourite cartoon for What Science Is, is to see it as a social cognitive prosthesis, a way for us to collectively overcome our theoretical incompetence. It’s cognitive flexibility that I’m associating with skepticism, the institutional and individual ability to continually adjust and calibrate cognitive commitments in the face of changing evidential landscapes. It’s not about suspending commitment tout court, so much as being ready to readjust.
In other words, I’m a mitigated skeptic. I think it’s fairly obvious that all claims are not equal, and that epistemic commitments are inescapable: so for me it’s really just a matter of finding our way past our own cognitive shortcomings and through the complexities of the world. Science is clearly the best way of doing this (that we know of).
I think social constructivism, contextualism, post-structuralism, as well as several other ‘isms’ I’ve ascribed to over the years as a bunch of interesting, metaphysical bunk. Contrary to what you suggest, these are only the norm in certain specialized communities, and I think are on the wane.
Ah, interesting answer, thank you very much, Mr Bakker!
As I have no time left today, I might reply in some detail later, if you should be interested in a discussion.
“the institutional and individual ability to continually adjust and calibrate cognitive commitments in the face of changing evidential landscapes”
Realistically what characterizes scientific progress and science is not at all the individual flexibility towards new theories. Bohr was pretty advanced in science, for instance, but he never bought Einstein’s viewpoint despite overwhelming evidence and tried to prove him wrong whenever he could. Einstein hated Quantum theory and desperately wanted something else in its place.
While it’d be great to think that science is perfectly peer-reviewed, repeatable and failable experiments all over the place, the fact is that humans do get in the way here. THere’s a good reason to be skeptical of science – especially science that is not falsifiable easily.
I agree with pretty much everything you say, which makes me think you thought I was saying something different. In the case of science, democracy, and markets, the flexibility is institutional: believers are organized in such a way that zeal becomes self-correcting. Your final statement, I would amend to, “There’s good reason to be skeptical of science, and there’s better reason to be more skeptical of every other theoretical claim-making institution humans have devised.
HF: “As staunch sceptics (in a pyrrhonian sense) we would have to suspend judgement on any and all scientific theories – a behavioural rule which scientists obviously do not follow…”
There are views of Pyrrhonian skepticism according to which this claim is correct. So I don’t mean to say that you’re way off base. But someone who works in the area, I want to throw out there, briefly, that I think this view of Pyrrhonism utterly misses the mark. Pyrrhonian suspension of judgment (epoche) is directed not at belief tout court (as you seem to think, along with people like Burnyeat, Striker, et al.), nor only certain otiose metaphysical beliefs (as the other main interpretive camp thinks, following Frede), but rather at _dogmatism_. In other words, we’re to suspend judgment in the sense of ceasing to hold our beliefs dogmatically, i.e., with certainty.
Pyrrhonians are free to hold to scientific claims. They’re even free to hold to religious claims. Sextus writes: “… following ordinary life without opinions [adoxastos], we say that there are gods and are pious toward the gods and say that they are provident: it is against the rashness of the Dogmatists that we make [our skeptical arguments]” (PH 3.2). The tricky interpretive question, of course, is how to interpret ‘adoxastos,’ which means ‘without belief’ or ‘without opinion.’ I interpret it as meaning that beliefs are held without the further belief that they are absolutely correct, or are known to correspond to the way the world is ‘in itself,’ etc.
At PH 1.15, Sextus writes that skeptics “say what is apparent to themselves and report their own feelings without holding opinions, affirming nothing about external objects.” It seems clear to me that “affirming nothing…” is a gloss on what Sextus means by “adoxastos.” Understood in the context of Stoic epistemology, “affirming nothing about external objects” amounts, it could be argued, to a sort of Kantian claim about ‘things-in-themselves.’ Sextus certainly does affirm things about external objects (e.g., that the presence of smoke indicates the presence of fire); what he denies is that any of these beliefs lives up to dogmatic epistemic standards that would license us in holding that such beliefs necessarily correspond or describe the world as it is in itself.
In other words, ‘adoxastos’ is a description of a transformed doxastic attitude, an attitude _toward_ one’s beliefs. It is this transformed attitude, which the skeptics claimed will lead to ataraxia (tranquility, lack of troubledness), that characterizes the Pyrrhonian skeptic.
Skepticism is _not_ incompatible with acquiesence in scientific theories. Skeptics, however, are not going to make the mistake of viewing science as a replacement for, or as serving the same function as, metaphysics. They are _not_ going to hold the theories dogmatically.
Many years ago I had this disagreement with a religious fanatic. He would not budge in the age of the universe, for him it could not be more than 6000 years old. So, thinking myself clever, I argued that if the universe were only 6000 years old our telescopes would mostly see dark space. Most starts are too far away for their light to reach in only 6000 years. I though the argument was fool proof. What was he going to say? That we don’t know the accurate speed of light, that we do not know the distance of the stars? I thought myself big and proud for having won an argument, until he responded: “ahh, but you see, there is only one truth, the truth of our lord Jesus Christ, that is the only thing we can believe, ANYTHING that contradicts that truth is deception, we cannot trust even our senses, so it is Satan that makes us see the stars in order to make us doubt the truth of Jesus.” How could I win? Well, I could not. That is the thing with us humans, we choose one set of assumptions based on their emotional comfort and build every thing on top, we refuse to believe even what our own senses are telling us. Libertarianism? Well, there is no contradiction there. Libertarianism IS a religion. Michaek Shermer might be an atheist, but he is still religious. He refused to accept that the U.S. had an inferior health care system than other countries. All Canadians should know how ridiculous that is. But Shermer lets is emotional fetish for the deluded concept of the invisible hand guide his ability to reason just as any other religious fundamentalist.
Great example story, Walter!
I’ve started to think they don’t rationalize their beliefs – what they do is rationalise you. They want to be socially connected, so they aren’t trying to fit their beliefs into the world, they are trying to fit you into the beliefs world so they aren’t alone with the belief.
Really that’s why he didn’t instantly reject you as an unbeliever and leave (or go medieval on you), because he managed to rationalise your social connection with his belief. Socially you had yet to contradict the belief enough that he couldn’t rationalise you to it. Perhaps a better way of saying it, is he is explaining you to his belief, not his belief to you.
Well, it’s interesting to think of it as being that way around. I always thought it was rationalising/making excuses for the belief itself.
But Shermer lets is emotional fetish for the…
Now now, other peoples apparent fetish can make us start our own…
“Out of nearly 7 billion people, I’m fortunate to be in the top 1% in the planet with regards to health, wealth, looks, brains, athleticism, and nationality.”
Wow. Just . . . wow.
Darren! Up to my old tricks, old man.
I’ll be chuckling about this one for a long, long time.
I would be very interested to see if Theo or someone else could expand on his answer to the “belief half” of the question. I can’t find a way to parse it that is internally consistent.
If human action on earth is of importance, and that action is shaped by belief (both facts asserted in his answer) then that belief and the correctness thereof must “matter.”
His answer suggests to me that he sees you as a man bragging about how wise he is, and how much better he has captured the truth of the world than others; a contest you are trying to beat him at.
His counter (as I understand it) is that “your” contest is a hollow one. Even if you can sketch creation better than he can – which he would not admit even if you could – a perfect image of reality is an unreachable goal. Better instead to seek a life not of Complete Knowledge, but of Correct Action, for even a fool can Act Correctly based on false beliefs.
Where this all breaks down of course is that our belief about Correct Action is the only definition we have, so while it is possible for even the most empty-headed fool to Act Correctly, that doesn’t answer your question: How do we KNOW if we are Acting Correctly?
That is the part I would like someone to explain. Preferably without asserting the authority of any ancient texts…
This is kind of rich. Theo actually posted an “answer” to your question. Here’s his original statement:
“Bakker simply doesn’t understand that I don’t believe his opinion, my opinion, or anyone else’s opinion matters in the least, except in how they happen to affect our decisions and subsequent actions.”
And here his reply:
“When did I say that human action on Earth is of any importance? I implied precisely the opposite in citing Mises. Human action only matters, it only CAN matter, in the subjective sense, so the belief and the correctness of the belief can only matter to the acting man, except in that there happen to be any material consequences of those actions to others.”
Translated from gobbledygook, this means:
– opinion doesn’t matter, except in how it affects personal action
– actions don’t matter, except for their subjective import and how they affect others
Forget Mises, maybe this is from some Buddhist text somewhere?
I was pleasantly surprised to see he addressed me in his post.
Less surprised that the content of his reply didn’t clear anything up.
I guess if we reduce the transitive relation here, we get this:
“Opinions don’t matter, except for their subjective import and how they affect others.”
In other words, opinions matter.
Let me try a charitable reading: Belief and opinion matter in a subjective way (i.e. to the man acting). Also, action only matters in a subjective way, except where those actions have material consequences to others.
I am not a smart man, but if I am reading correctly, the only thing of objective importance is how one’s actions affect others. The motivations, opinions, and beliefs behind those actions are unimportant.
I agree with Shawn’s interpretation. Of course this does not mean I subscribe to the original idea because the original idea makes no sense. Of course the motivations, opinions, and beliefs behind actions are important. There would be no actions without them. Therefore, if one’s actions impact others the impact is the direct result of the actor’s opinions and beliefs. The significance of opinions and beliefs on the lives of others precedes any action that might be taken according to those beliefs and opinions.
I think the important thing here is that Theo has not actually answered the question he was asked. “Why, out of the multitude of beliefs, are your beliefs right and all others wrong?” To which Theo has answered “Beliefs don’t matter.” This seems very much like he is intentionally avoiding the question by dissimulation.
Theo certainly seems to think that Bakker’s beliefs matter.
uh.
taking yourself seriously is almost forgivable, despite the exquisite irony implicit therein. giving a crap what theo thinks makes you (appear) ridiculous.
I have to disagree with this. I thought this post was much more the way to pursue the experiment. Taking your opponent seriously – even if they don’t deserve it – deprives them of the usual get-outs. Most people can’t bring themselves to do it, which may be a contributing factor to why so many online arguments are DOA. Theo is likely to respond to this and it will be interesting – not on its own terms maybe, but for Scott’s experiment – how he deals with it.
Theo: Bakker simply doesn’t understand that I don’t believe his opinion, my opinion, or anyone else’s opinion matters in the least, except in how they happen to affect our decisions and subsequent actions. See Human Action for details.
Bakker(rephrasing): ‘I really don’t know whether my claims are right or wrong, but I don’t care one way or another, so long as people seem to believe me.”
Eric: How do we KNOW if we are Acting Correctly?
Theo: By ascertaining if the consequences of the action accord harmoniously with the results predicted. Or, if you prefer, by their fruits you shall know them.
If you get what you wanted, your acting right.
Peoples capacity to believe is there for his benefit. If working beliefs gets the results predicted, your acting right.
If life were a boardgame, I would say Theo is playing exactly how I’d play it. Where belief is simply there for your benefit as a means to ones ends (just like playing a cleric in D&D – it’s not about belief, it’s about heal spells and smite spells and manipulating party members by controlling the healing). Any reference to god is simply a reference to a fellow player. Think a-fucking-bout that.
Scott, if life were a boardgame, your a scrub player ( http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/intermediates-guide.html ). You do not play to win. You make up rules that do not exist in the boardgame and abide by them and are surprised others do not.
I’m pretty sure I’m not projecting this onto Theo, because as I said, if life were a fucking board game, I would play the same fucking way. That’s hardly a flattering position to have. If life were a board game the axiom “How do we KNOW if we are Acting Correctly? By ascertaining if the consequences of the action accord harmoniously with the results predicted.” is absolutely fucking correct. Sorry bud, play a boardgame with me some time and I’ll kick your ass and win if you think I’m being wrong on that and you can play by some sort of moral code. No, winning makes right, not your moral realism BS….IN a boardgame. IN a boardgame.
I am, however, aware of no great universal game. And I find it fucking scary that if I had been born in Theo’s shoes, it appears I might have thought I’d been delt into a great game because of the awesome fucking ‘hand’ ‘delt’ to me. I rolled my stats, GM! STR: 18, DEX: 18, CON: 18…etc etc. Now that’s a motherfucking lottery winner! This is someone who thinks they are a player at THE game.
Or, you know, not.
But I testify if life were a boardgame, I’d play it this way and I would give Scott, the scrub player, the same answer as Theo. If you win, you know your right. That’s what winning is. I can atleast speak clearly for myself.
And if there is some big game I’m unaware of, speaking clearly makes me a scrub player.
Not sure that is Theo’s intended meaning, since it goes pretty strongly against his seemingly Christian background.
More likely he meant: “Good results flow from good actions, and wicked results from wicked actions.” Which doesn’t really help define good or evil.
Eric, man! If you want to say there’s a chance of another outcome, sure. But what’s this intent stuff? When does that end? For how long will you keep attributing this intent you describe, to him? Can you see any chance of another outcome – can you see any chance of another intent in effect?
A guy on Theo’s forum has given a similar hypothesis to mine
E. Perline: High IQ people are tested by their ability to solve puzzles.
But solving puzzles is a Reptilian Brain activity. The Reptilian brain is intelligent. It regulates all body systems, and commands us to follow our instincts.
But in contrast to the Reasoning Brain (the cortex) the Reptilian Brain has a clock-like kind of intelligence.
This kind of intelligence shows up in autism.*snipped out a bit about obama*
Our programming allows conflict inside our head between The Reptilian Brain and the Reasoning Brain.
Our tendency is to allow the Reptilian Brain to steal the the spotlight from the Reasning Brain.
The reptilian brain. The boardgame brain!
And there is nothing I have described that goes against christian background – when such a background has always been viewed from a reptilian brain.
My woman is a very gentle person, she doesn’t even like killing bugs and tries to chase them out of the house. But get her into a boardgame and she’ll figuritively slit your throat and leave you in a shallow grave the first moment she can. It scares me a little, even, the difference! Part of her brain turns off when she plays – and since it’s a boardgame, that’s fine in my book (probably in your book too).
Here’s a hypothesis – that part of Theo’s brain is either partially or fully turned off.
And when you think christian background, your thinking of it with that part on. Which is not the same – perhaps the only way I could show you is to make some sort of christian themed boardgame, then when you start to lose and the way you start thinking to win…that thinking. How many little boardgame token bodies will you bury, while telling me ‘but the effect is harmonious with the intent (to win)’? I wonder? I guess we haven’t run such a game yet, so we can both only forecast.
Sorry for the long posts everyone, btw.
Callan, a very interesting though. If I may take it a step further, the reason those dealth that good hand (or whom the rules benefit) so slavishly demand that everyone must follow those rules and those who do not (those who play simply for fun, or refuse to play) take away the enjoyment of their victory. If they want to be a winner, they have to clearly delineate that someone else is the loser. It’s not fun if the person doesn’t play, or doesn’t care or doesn’t acknowledge their superiority when they ultimately DO win. So the Objectivist seeks to undermine any choice that doesn’t support the playing of the game the way they see fit.
so slavishly demand that everyone must follow those rules and those who do not (those who play simply for fun, or refuse to play) take away the enjoyment of their victory.
The perception I’m talking about, there is no refusal to play possible. Your playing, whether you like it or not. There is only the strange curiosity for people who are in a game, yet doing stuff that is orthagonal to winning.
So the Objectivist seeks to undermine any choice that doesn’t support the playing of the game the way they see fit.
And as I’ve said, I am in the state of questioning the existance of a game at all – not whether Theo is trying to force people to play “the” game, some existant game, his way.
I will say, in terms of boardgames, video games, mmorpgs, I disagree with those playing ‘simply for fun’. You want a themepark board activity or themepark program, not a game. There is no other way of playing a ‘game’ than playing to win, you can’t draw on the real worlds ‘oh, that’s just the way you want to live’ in a game and say ‘oh, that’s just the way you want to play’. It doesn’t work that way, it’s just bringing the moral confusion of the world into what would be the pockets of clarity we otherwise call games, for political profit within that clarity. Yet it will soon enough destroy it for a million souls crying out that they have won the magical belief lottery on how you play a game. Playing to win is just another belief, of course, but either kneel before it or as I say, themepark programs and themepark activities are fine by me.
It is almost frightening that people take this Theo fucker seriously. Reminds me of those fundamentalist tea party fucks that are completely disconnected from reality. Human beings in general are simply not willing to put themselves in a truly vulnerable head space. To be able to strip away the socialization and dogma and walk to the very edge of their comfort zone and take that final step. So many people “need” a box to live in. They are unwilling and often unable to conduct any sort of real self analysis. So they create rules and structure to give them comfort and a false sense of purpose. Deep down these people are terrified. They are terrified of an existence that is paradoxical in nature. Frightened to death at that notion that there is no purpose.
The fundamentalist cake mix:
3 parts narcissism
2 parts dogma
1 part stupidity
Top with High Fructose Corn Syrup, Mix and bake for 30 minutes
Looks fucking delicious.
Tastes like fucking shit.
I am not sure, but I don’t think discussion with him is simply for the sake of principle. It’s because of the large amounts of resources and even peoples lives under his thumb, and so do many like him. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t take him seriously. But then again, maybe that’s why such people creep up into power. They seem so bonkers they practically become invisible to discerning perception. Then they employ that invisibility to gain power.
Possibly some of these responses fall within the problem. Here is a parody of what I mean: “Oh these stupid fundamentalists! So prone to forming in-groups! (Unlike us, we’re broad minded). They’re terrified of reality! (We face up to it manfully).” Surely Scott’s experiment is not only to find out if trolling can ever change someone’s mind. As I understand it, it’s also to find out if you can do it without trying to seem superior to the other person. Admittedly it’s difficult to stay modest when arguing with someone like Theo. But that’s the challenge.
Heh, assume oneself will win over the other while acting as if one isn’t superior to them? There’s an irony in the fire!
First: that aphorism. Over winter you were working the snow shovel with your ass. Now you are shaving your rectum. Dude. Hardcore.
Second: This chain and counter-chain, and counter-counter-chain with Theo is truly formidable. I just don’t know where to begin anymore. But those comments on Vox Pop about the ‘European ambassador’ are as hysterical as they are delusional.
Third: Reviews beginning with “I only read 5 pages of his book” (per pyrofennic (sp.?)) are not reviews. They are gossip. But you know that.
Scott, I have found a new dragon for you to slay:
http://johncwright.livejournal.com/333124.html