| John and Sally | Gulson | Chatline | Chatline Pages | Welcome back after our 6 month 'holiday' caused by a slight 'misunderstanding' with our web host's technical staff. Ho hum. Let's get on with revolutionizing the world through clear thought, courage and intelligence. |
Latest entry is first
21-may-2008
Problems of the West 2008 (See more of John and Sally's radical debate in John and Sally and Chatline.)
Sally: In our pub conversations in the last few months, we've spoken a lot about the problems - and to a lesser extent the achievements - of Western civilization in recent times. But it has been a pretty sketchy analysis I feel, only broaching features of our system - capitalism - as they related to the topic we were considering. Do you think it would be a good idea for us to consider the system as a whole now, and to the best of our abilities, draw up a sort of balance sheet of successes and problems to be addressed?
John: How shall we define the West?
Sally: All of the capitalist and socialist countries, both ideologies being of western genesis.
John: Shall we ignore socialism, given that it doesn't really exist as the prevailing form of organization in any country?
Sally: ... and therefore cannot be held responsible for any of the world's problems in 2008 .. yes - let's ignore socialism. However, we should bear in mind that within many capitalist countries there are socialistic forms - such as public transport, education, health, pensions, defence - paid for from public funds for the benefit of all - and organized by elected politicians.
John: Let's make a list. Here's the first item on my list of Ten Problems of the West in 2007
Problem 1 - Inherent inefficiency in current Western economic system
In the economic system we live in - capitalism - inefficiency increases profits and wastes human labour - for example, new, redundant, non-working and arbitrarily re-jigged versions of software are good for the (capitalist) economy - labour like it because it increases jobs; capital like it because it increases profits; government like it because it boosts 'the economy'. So you have failure (wasted human effort on a historic scale) called success.
How does that look so far Sal?
Sally: Yes - everyone likes it - but it's no good - can you reconcile that?
John: Well not totally everyone kid. The radicals don't like it. The pure at heart don't like it. Even some of the old ruling class - the landed gentry, royalty etc. don't like it. On the other side, you have the capitalists, the workers, the unemployed, and the poor - who all do like it and would have it no other way. You know there was a time I actually believed the workers, unemployed and poor didn't like this antiquated and inefficient system. Then I talked to them. They love it. They call the squalour and mediocrity they live in success. It's the radicals they don't like.
Sally: So regarding class politics and the revolutionary potential of the working class to move things on ...
John: ... forget it. OK - vast over-simplifcation based on an assumed ability to see into the future ...
Sally: Quite. And an assumption that what people say is what they really think, and that they won't change their minds. Anyway, this line of thought is in the nature of an aside - who could change things - let's get back to the simpler subject - problems.
John: Well it's a problem if you can't solve a problem ... But yes. So - is my first Problem of The West 2007 a valid number 1?
Sally: Well, first, is what you say true? Is some contemporary software unnecessarily complex and require vast resources, both computer and human, to do simple tasks? In my experience yes. What has surprised me over the years is that there appear to be no studies actually measuring an increase in productivity in a typical organization of, say, upgrading from one version of an operating system to the next version. Or of 'upgrading' from a relatively easy to use programming language like BASIC to an error-prone and complex one like C. I can only suppose that, as your Problem 1 suggests, under the current system, important interest groups - the capitalists and their friends the workers and academics - actually benefit from inefficiency and complexity - selling new product and new labour power and new expertise. Meanwhile the users - the customers - find it increasingly difficult to copy a file or print a report. And yes it's inherent in the system.
John: I could mention one Mc brand of anti-virus software in which every message seems ambiguous. You can't even tell for example, whether you've got a virus or not. I'm sure this can't just be down to programmer illiteracy. Think about it - the more unsure and bewildered your user is, the more likely he is to purchase the next year's subscription. And if you make your software gradually slow your customer's whole system down, he's more likely to purchase your special speed-up upgrade. And if you make removing viruses appear incredibly complex, you'll be able to sell courses and consultancy. These I'm afraid are problems inherent in a market-based economy.
Sally: Well the remedy to this is said to be competition - one of the strengths of a market-based system. Someone comes along and produces a better product.
John: I'm still waiting. If you look at the competing PC operating systems, all of them seem to follow the same line - pile in lots of new and unnecessarily complex 'features' so you can say - yes we have this and more. The western consumer is used to making purchasing decisions this way.
Sally: I think you have another example relating to computer software that shows inefficiency inherent in a competitive market economy.
John: Yes, the following is my theory relating to the competition between Netscape and Internet Explorer and how this competition decreased efficiency rather than increased it:
Sally: Go on.
John: Netscape and Internet Explorer are, as you know, web browsers - used for viewing web pages from the Internet. Originally, all web pages consisted of just HTML commands, which would tell the browser what to put on the screen. That was just static text and pictures. The invention came from an academic. Later, it was realized that you could extend the browser in such a way that it could respond not just to the HTML, but also embedded scripts that could move items around on the screen. So web page authors started putting these scripts into their web pages to create these dynamic effects.
Sally: Yes.
John: The vendors of Netscape and Internet Explorer incorporated software into their respective browsers to execute these scripts on the user's computer. That was good and progressive. However, in order to stop the browser users slipping away to the other vendor's product, in other words in an attempt to tie their customers to them, they produced two different languages - javascript and vbscript, to write the scripts in.
Sally: So the browsers were incompatible.
John: Yeah - Netscape won't execute vbscript - just javascript. Internet Explorer can run both vbscript and javascript, but the javascript language variant it uses is in many ways incompatible with the Netscape version. So anyone wishing to develop an application that both the Netscape and Internet Explorer users can use needs to incorporate code in their application that first detects which of the two browsers the user is using and then write two sets of code - one for Netscape in Netscape javascript for the Netscape users and another in vbscript for the Internet Explorer users.
Sally: It looks here as if competition for market share in the pursuit of profits hasn't benefited anyone at all.
John: No, it's led to inefficiency and wasted human effort on an enormous scale. First of all the human effort in having to produce two versions of every browser application, second (in Internet Explorer's case) of having to have code to interpret both javascript and vbscript, third in the extra time taken to download web pages containing two script versions. Just consider how many web pages are downloaded each day.
Sally: So what's the basic problem here, and how could it be done better?
John: It looks to me as if the basic problem is one intrinsic to the capitalist aspects of the Western economies - production for profit rather than to benefit mankind.
Sally: How so?
John: Well, the aim of production for a producer in the capitalist system is to make a profit for its owners. In order to do this it must sell as many units as it can at as a high a price and at as low a cost as it can.
Sally: Yes? Lower costs sounds good to me.
John: Yes of course it is.
John: Production for use would be better.
Sally: Say what's wrong about production for profit first.
John: Well first let's modify what it is we're criticizing here. In the current economic system, production benefits two groups - the owners of the means of production i.e. company owners, shareholders etc. - and the workers - the people employed to do the work. The owners benefit by the profits the workers produce, and the workers benefit by wages - a fixed amount that comes out of the profits. So what we're criticizing is that - production for profit and wages.
Sally: Isolate the problem as you see it.
John: The problem with the profit / wage system, if I can call it that, is that both groups - the owner and the worker - depend for their survival on production, and it doesn't matter to them what it is that's actually produced - useful objects, useless junk, dangerous junk - bread or bombs. That's the first problem - utility,. The second is efficiency. If the product wears out or is harmful, that's of no consequence, so long as it sells. Short-lived light-bulbs and cigarettes are examples. Looked at at a distance, you can see that efficiency in terms of customer benefit goes against the owners' interests, and efficiency in terms of reduced labour in production goes against the workers' interests.
Sally: So the two major stakeholding classes in capitalism have a vested interest in inefficiency. Hardly progressive.
John: No. Capitalism seems to be fundamentally flawed in this respect.
[both laugh]
9-may-2007
Problems of the West 2007
JC: Even though Western capitalism (and all of the West is currently capitalist) is the most advanced system yet having appeared on the planet, and the system everyone seems to want and to believe in - from those who own it, to those at the very bottom - there are on closer inspection, a few problems, most of which will only be understood by the common man - who is the victim of these systemic defects - after they have been removed. In our Radical Debate chatline John and Sally - our very nice and very wise and rational pub philosophers - have recently started discussing what is one of the main motivating factors behind www.radicaldebate.com - the problems of Western civilization at the start of the third Western millennium. Being (nice) radicals, they hope to actually help initiate solutions to some of these problems of the current epoch, rather than either give up and become conservatives or 'drop out' and leave the thinking and actions to other braver more moral souls. John reckons he has a list of ten problems and he and Sally are going to tackle them by first trying to clearly express them, then understand their mechanism, pose solutions and finally strategies for implementing those solutions. A pretty difficult task for a couple of suburban commuters you might think - but capital and its free market, parliament, the electorate, vanguardist cliques, pressure groups, the 'free' press, trade unions, etc. etc. - have all so far failed to solve these problems - most even deny their existence. John and Sally won't shout, get angry, or claim as obvious that which is false. They observe, think, experiment, reason, hold provisional beliefs, and constantly revise - in short they use the scientific method - and believe this is the way forward. You can join in the debate by clicking on Problems of the West 2007 in the www.radicaldebate.com Chatline. You might change history and speed the way to a freer, more just and efficient epoch.
27-mar-2007
Welcome to Radical Debate
JC: Type the phrase Radical debate into Google.com and you'll get this website www.radicaldebate.com as number 1. With most of the other search engines we're near the top too. Frankly this has surprised us. After all, this website is not exactly pro-establishment, and seeks and encourages criticism of the status quo and its radical transformation in some areas. However, we remain progressives, and seek only positive change in areas that require it. Here at the beginning of a new Western millennium, it seems appropriate to look for new horizons for mankind - here on Earth and beyond. In our view, the current economic system - capitalism and its attendant culture and philosophies - while probably the best system humanity has ever had, comparing favourably in nearly every sphere with what has gone before - animism, primitive communism, theism, feudalism, monarchism, and even nationalism - capitalism is truly going global and despite local opposition, sweeping all opposition aside - doesn't seem to be able to deal effectively with continuing limits to individual freedom, security and prosperity. Aggression and inequality are taken as the norm - and superstition, fantasy and escapism the order of the day among Western populations, with many lives seeming still quite aimless and under-developed. This website seeks to find solutions for these problems of conservatism, superstition, war and intellectual impoverishment. We believe that with intelligence, courage, freedom and imagination, man can take big steps forward - as he has done before - and this wonderful recent achievment - the Internet can be used as one of the agents of change - it still seems free! Virtually free of charge, and free of censorship.
Anyway, if this is your first visit to RD, welcome and have a look at John and Sally (modern Socratic dialogue), Chatline (virtual pub where philosophy is spoke), and Gulson - a friend of RD - visionary writer or fool - who evokes various responses, including that feeling of 'yes'. If you're a progressive and reckon you can either identify a problem in the status quo or posit a new idea or solution, please contribute to one of the subjects (tables) in the RD chatline (pub). You can even talk to John and Sally - two very nice and totally rational individuals unencumbered by many of the standard beliefs and myths of the contemporary bourgeoisie.
Work continues on improving the technical aspectsof this site. It always will. Every now and then look for a major perestroika.
11-mar-2007
Death of a Postmodernist - and Chatline Subjects
JC: For those of you not up with the vagaries of contemporary European pop-philosophy, postmodernism floats on the tenet that because the media are omnipresent and purport to show reality and people take it for reality, that it is reality. After all, what is reality but what we believe in? It follows that what we believe in is reality. From that (pre-modern) circular and clearly illogical starting point, follow all sorts of insupportable conclusions, such as the notion that everyone has his own reality and that science is just a faith-based belief-system like religion. Truth goes out the window along with experience, evidence and reality. And that name - Postmodernism? As far as I can make out it goes something like this: Since some of the beliefs and aspirations of modernist thinkers of the past have not been realized, it follows that modernism has failed and some new philosophy must take its place. After all, if the man in the street now has a modernist materialistic atheistic rationalist philosophy, how can we philosophers make a buck? In the event, they fell back on the tried and tested ancient philosophy that has hoodwinked the populus through the centuries - subjective idealism. So postmodernism should be called pre-modernism. History hasn't ended, the material world still exists and develops, and all useful philosophy has turned into science, engineering, law, politics, medicine, economics, and a hundred and one trades. The rest - the residue - remains philosophy. It is in this light we mark the passing of Jean Baudrillard - see Chatline comment 261 in Poverty of philosophy. Your comments are welcome as always.
The chatline programming carries on, with minor improvements here and there. For instance you can now list out just the subject you want. We're leaving in the Recent - all subjects thread / table / subject so you can see what the latest comments are in all subjects, before crossing to that thread / table / subject to follow / intervene in the whole argument / discussion / episode.
We're still not sure about letting users create their own new subjects, since this might end up in the prevalence of threads about sports, personalities and the usual range of shallow, manufactured pop-issues and attitudes in the acceptable (bourgeois) media. I suppose we're like the current media people in that respect - if they disagree with a particular set of opinions, they won't broadcast them. To our self-proclaimed free press, every phenomenon is an isolated news event - unconnected with any other. General principles or conclusions are never allowed to be drawn. Radical ideas are seen as 'extremism' and simply not presented. The difference here on RD is that no-one's paying us to follow any line - we're truly independent - at least as much as our upbringing and education and economic constraints allow us to be. They have the money - we have - or seek - the truth. We shall judge our success on truths revealed rather than number of customers. (Truth we take to be a measure of the accuracy of a statement - how well that statement models - is similar in structure - to the portion of reality it addresses - nothing more.)
5-mar-2007
Chatline 'subjects/threads' - and Race
JC: Work continues on the Chatline. Separating chat stream into 'subjects'. Pub personalities emerging. Shirley sports short skirt in the Chat at bar subject. Nigel asks another enigmatic puzzler in Physics. John and Sally discuss Race - currently in the Freedom thread - Race will get its own thread soon. They define racism and prove that it is an ill-founded concept - using logic - rather more convincing than cajolery or indignant appeals to supposedly eternal moral values - which of course do not exist. They also make distinctions between individual racial preference, bias and even prejudice which I think they're saying are an individual's right, and counterpose these to actual racial discrimination - anything that would put an individual at a disadvantage - further reduce his freedom - simply because of his race. Have your say - on the Chatline.
I find John and Sally's rational, logical, fact and evidence - based approach such a breath of fresh air compared to the stock attitudinizing of the usual circus of boring, safe and entirely predictable conservatives the media wheel out to do our thinking for us.
28-feb-2007
Gulson's latest magical mystery tour - Cancer of Modern Life
JC: This, the latest version of the essay Cancer of Modern Life by the visionary 21st century English writer Jonathon Gulson, takes the reader on a vivid personalized and mind-altering journey through the bleak contemporary philosophic landscape and its crazy paving of aimless linguistical semiotics. Very hip. Very tough. Ultimately vacuous and self-annihilating. You will need a few beers after this one B'wana.
Freedom
JC: John and Sally, alone in their North London saloon bar early this morning, invented a simple calculus of freedom and came to the conclusion that capitalism stands in freedom's way. Sally, any comments?
Sally: It was the only conclusion we could come to really.
John: I think the subject needs further clarification, but we obtained a couple of interesting results. First, 'Freedom from' is identical to 'Freedom to', so these concepts no longer need distinguishing and we can just talk about freedom. Second, we invented a way of calculating freedom, which we called the calculus of freedom. Most people in contemporary Western society score pretty low.
JC: Is that the last word on freedom then guys?
Sally: No. I personally would like to explore the idea of group and/versus individual freedom and the value of freedom. Other areas are, supposing freedom has value, working out a strategy for achieving it, and undermining its pathological negation, fear of freedom.
John: Yes, the popular fear and cynicism about freedom is brought about not least by the corruption of its meaning by opposing imperialist and hegemonistic theist elements, and their lackeys in the institutions.
JC: Nice Stalinist terminology there John.
John: Yes, nice headliney stuff. But I missed out 'running dogs'. Some of that terminology still has meaning but tends to scare people off. Anyway, read our little chat and comment - put your oar in as Reg calls it - you'd be most welcome. We're very nice people really (sniff) and the opposite of dictators like Stalin. Incidentally, for the timid conservatives among you, we were of the opinion in our chat this morning that capitalism is the best system yet devised. But we said it limited freedom due to its essentially exploitative nature and ventured to suggest it might be improved upon. This we characterized as optimism - things could be made better. We know the establishment takes criticism of its system as pessimism - this is the best of all possible systems they say, and change can only make things worse. History shows otherwise. But we have to get it right and suggest the right changes and the right strategies to take the big steps forward that are needed. Reason and audacity are our best weapons.
27-feb-2007
Freedom
JC: In a deserted pub, John and Sally start talking about freedom. Listen in. This conversation is set to come to some pretty startling conclusions. Sally has already made a normal life look like slavery, haven't you Sally?
Sally: Well we've just started JC. My initial question is just that - a question. John hasn't responded yet. Let's see where it goes. When John and I converse, we don't do it to bond or to express ourselves or to comfort each other. We consider the facts and follow the logic, looking for contradictions and unfounded assumptions in the conventional viewpoint. They are often quite easy to find.
JC: Thank you Sal. Let's see where it goes on the subject of freedom.
26-feb-2007
Go and chat in Chatline
JC: Yes, go and have a chat in Chatline. Comment on an existing subject or bring up a new one.
25-feb-2007
John and Sally's Virtual Pub gets Tables
JC: (Extending the Virtual Pub metaphor now - warming to it apace): It's clear that not everyone wants to come and chat with the perhaps seemingly stuck-up intellectually superior John and Sally. So we are introducing tables. Radical huh? In a pub like. So you won't have to sit with them. You can choose your own subject. Talk to yourself. Get drunk, stand on the table and bellow. Naked. Murder the landlord and drink all the beer. You know - enjoy yourself. There is only one restriction. No postmodernists allowed. No Derrida-esque quasi-Lacanian mystics will get past that door mate. Not on my shift. (I've now become the barman - see?. Now I morph back - to what I have been told is, what is commonly accepted as and what I like to think of as - myself - your humble - um - friend. Who will er - stick by you - and who uh - may one day introduce you to Binkie - and Gulson - and all of that.)
So soon, when you add a comment (Landlord says 'put your oar in') you will be able to say what table you're at. As you know, in pubs, there can be more than one subject going at one table at once, and as the night progresses, you might 'ear'ole' (thanks Reg) other conversations. So soon, you'll be able to focus on one table or ear'ole all of 'em - a skill increasingly acquired as the night unfolds - ear'ole them all. And your contributions will become increasingly appreciated and held in high esteem for their good natured humour, insight, and blinding logic. At some point you may be asked to buy a round, whence you either cough up, or having anticipated this eventuality, join another table or flit across to that other chatty pub - particularly if you like talking about potplants.
23-feb-2007
John and Sally's Virtual Pub
JC: John and Sally have decided to go live. They'll talk to anyone with interesting points or problems down their local. Just go into the Chatline for a virtual pint and a bit of devastatingly rational and possibly unconventional actual debate. Anyone can chip in. Just introduce your virtual self and start each comment with your name so we all know who's saying what. Last orders 10:30, chucking out 11:00, occasional lock-in at barman's discretion but don't hold your breath - he's a miserable old sod. John and Sally like a drink, and you'll soon be able to get them one on Paypal. I think you will find it's your round. Get 'em in quick before the rest of 'em come. Pub, now.
19-feb-2007
Incredible: Radical debate is Number 1in the World with AltaVista
AltaVista has rated this site as Number 1 and Yahoo Number 6 - on the subject "radical debate" - after just ten days on air. That's a wonderful and completely unexpected result for us! And well done Yahoo and AltaVista! Now, dear readers, start expressing yourself and developing your own radical ideas and influencing others here on the Radical Debate Chatline. Be as controversial, visionary, or cranky as you want - on any subject. We'll delete anything we don't like. "We" includes rationalist John Carter, the visionary Jon Gulson, ... and the remaining members of the politburo.
Radical debate subjects
It was suggested yesterday that we divide the emergent and burgeoning Chatline into different subjects - threads. This could happen soon. Read the chatline regularly - there's some interesting debate in there.
10-feb-2007
Right
Is it ever right for one man to control another? Hear John and Sally debate this soon, along with the inevitable concomitant : What do we mean by right?. 'Right' and 'rights' have so many meanings. John and Sally will untangle the mess - down the pub as usual - with their usual rigorously rationalist verve and vigor. Click on the John and Sally link above to join them down the local and hear their highly controversial and often startling conclusions. And they seem so nice!
You can put your own comments on John and Sally's outrageous beliefs in the Chatline (link above) if you like. Do try and talk some sense into them.
Insociable
We now have Gulson's Insociable in HTML format. Click the Gulson link above.
One of our first Web Crawlers - from Reed Elsevier in Australia
Yeah - they found radicaldebate.com's home page on its first official day of existence! Others include Yahoo/inktomisearch (4 visits). Web crawlers are programs that search the entire Internet and index the contents of every web page they can find. They feed this information back to Search Engines like Yahoo and Google so you can find pages on your chosen subject. This is a massive business and a great contribution to world knowledge. It does mean that very little is secret on the Internet. To my knowledge, the contents of our Chatline is not indexed, because it's on a database, not a web page. Also remember that you can remain anonymous on our chatline - even we won't know who you are - because you don't have to join anything or give any personal details.
9-feb-2007
Chat line
We now have a rudimentary chat line in place. See above. Say anything you want there. Welcome - please add your comments on anything under the sun - or any other star. You can be entirely anonymous here - or use any name. There are no accounts etc. You don't have to join anything. Nobody cares why you think what you think. Just what you think. If you really mess up and want to delete what you said then ask me and I might delete it. On this site we go for truth, by which we mean accuracy. How you got to your accurate assessment of something is of secondary importance. Are your statements more or less similar in shape to the part of reality they attempt to describe? Do they model it well? Pictures can do this too but for the time being we'll stick to text. If your language is not English, you can get a pretty good translation using the fabulous Research feature of the later versions of Microsoft Word. This feature also contains dictionary and synonyms in addition to the old spelling and grammar checkers.
Yah - progress.
7-feb-2007
visit counter
Today we're putting in a visit counter, which you should see at the top of the page. So - 'big deal' you say - when can I say my piece? Soon, soon. We'll soon put a visit cointer on every page. Gulson is reported to be 'excited' about rd (radicaldebate.com) and has promised us signed web-enabled edition - to follow soon. Storing Insociable as a web page will mean it's easier to Google and inktomisearch (Yahoo) G's crystalline prose. So if you Googled language is its own object or prisons of nostalgia - to name but two popular Gulson-isms - you'd find the page straight away. The multi-headed semantics and semiotics that thread their way through Gulson's work are not, in this reader's view, as one newspaper reported, intended to give academics material to ponder and to award students and each other 'qualifications' over, any more than they are a series of random syntatical contrivances strung out down the page. Read it again. This time take off your shoes and socks.
Yeah - materialism - rationality - technology - put at the disposal of visionaries and radicals - that's good, that's progressive - that's radical.
5-feb-2007
dash - you don't have to compete when you do your own thing
Patoriku: i don't think we care about other sites or competition - do we? RadicalDebate.com won't compete and won't - i suggest - be able to tremend on technical grounds - not enough man-power - and too insociable anyway. the last thing on my mind is what's mainstream - dah-di-dit-dit - very liberating not to have to worry about that - nice to focus on fact rather than opinion - and to know the difference - unlike the post-mods - stop. we have gulson, we have john and sally, and you are of course invited to post some of your more inflammatory material - i reckon with patoriku we get two people - disillusioned peacenik, crafter of fine melodies, provocateur extrordinaire, man-with-no-theory english prat, flash-in-the-pan campaigner, eternal youth, writer of wrongs, and conceivably free living individual punk. ok three. so we have amongst us: rationalist, visionary, provocateur/liver - but i have probably got that all wrong - but there again i feel i can be free with you guys - but - and i have noticed that each of us can switch easily between our official workaday persona and our alter ego (or one of them in p's case). - must dash - and i'll get g's texted thoughts for the day and version 2 of Insociable (can we keep version 1 up too?) - up - up. P can I upload your forgottensoldier? look - looks like G will lend us COML.. things looking up. reading insociable. we're going to turn it into a webbie from a doccie - then it can be googled - if they so choose. radical debate. i wonder if having 'cunt' in the first page lowers our rating? or does it get us in with the beatniks - these dashes should - go - go - etc. - it occurs to me that the only one to ever read down to this particular bit - to have got this far - is indeed the google search engine - if so - i saw your wife using alta-bloody-vista man - https - index that geez.
29-jan-2007
It's here! Gulson has released the much-awaited Insociable and we here at Radical Debate have managed to obtain it first! You will see further publishing scoops in the near future - so watch these pages, open your mind, and . . . . . dig!
Shortly, you will be able to type in your comments directly to this page - on our material - your own - or anything else. We will delete anything we disagree with - just like the rest of the media.
In the meantime, I'm going to settle back and piece my way through the gloriously arcane logic of Gulson's Insociable. We can all compare notes later.
23-jan-2007
How time flies. It's now 23-jan-07 and I'm thinking about starting up this website. We have a contribution from the fabulous Mr. Jon Gulson lined up. Jon is famous among those who know for his linguistical loquacity. I'm John Carter and the author of the John and Sally dialogues, which will soon be incorporated into this site. Mr Gulson's views on things are perhaps more radical even than John and Sally's. It's difficult to pin him dow. He could be saying anything. When pressed on this first piece for radicaldebate.com, he said it's about what it isn't. Cunt. Jon and I will snipe at each other on this site, unlike John and Sally whose polite pub discussions verge on the Platonic - in form. But in content they are both hard-nosed rationalist materialists, overturning every cosy conventional concept in their path and often coming to rather unusual conclusions. So Mr Gulson is the antidote to this - artistically erratic - a problem child - with a nice turn of phrase. Oh, and he thinks language is its own object - whatever that means. (Subjective Idealist like all the rest - or magical mind man - a hippy with a day job?).
You, dear readers, will get a chance to chip in too. You'll just type in your comments - straight onto the web page - and there they'll stay. We won't delete ideas we disagree with. We'll delete them if we don't like them. Anyway, time for my tea. Talk.
Now here I am at home uploading to www.radicaldebate.com from a Win 95 Toshiba T2130CS using Terrapin FTP. Tomorrow I'll add the John and Sally pages. To help with the search engines, I'll mention again on this here homepage that this site is about debate - radical debate. This is why I've called it radicaldebate.com.
We also encourage your own radical contributions since we think that now, in the early stages of the third millennium, a radical debate is necessary to inform imminent necessary and radical profound social change. We need to be thinking about the next steps for life on Earth and progressives (see John and Sally's radical definition) are going to be needed to discern current problems and come up with solutions. To this end, I'll be adding the facility for site visitors (you) to add your own views, anonymously if you want. There will be no 'accounts' - you won't have to log in and there'll be no way to trace who you are. So you say whatever you like. We'll just delete anything we don't like. Generally, what we don't like will be conservative bores and post-modernist Derrida-ites who can't tell the difference between fact and opinion - in other words old-fashioned subjective idealists. On the other hand, judging by the outpourings of what passes for the professional intelligentsia, particularly in Europe, there still needs to be this debate. John and Sally have already discussed this nonsense I think.
Essentially, we're after a clearing of the traditional Western philosophical decks - let's see which of our fondly-held beliefs hold water. And on the other side, play about with alternative modes, hypotheses etc. Ironically, in an epoch of great scientific advances, the philosophers - and that includes the man and woman down the pub rather more than the professional poseurs - are still in the dark ages of morality, religion, fantasy, and other forms of brutal self-defeating conservative superstition. The professionals will continue to follow fashion and say whatever nonsense is necessary to keep their jobs.
So all you progressives, iconoclasts, revolutionaries, individual thinkers, futurists, optimists, dreamers, artists, materialists, engineers, scientists, all who love facts, but are courageous and imaginitive enough to create new facts - in short - radicals - let's make a new radical millennium.
Xmas 2004
This is default.asp
This is a bit of vbscript
This website will start after Xmas 2004.
In the meantime, we wish you a Merry Xmas and an enlightened New Year.
To do:
| improve hit counter to count hits on individual pages | . |
| improve search engine cred - metas, hypers to, tips, headings? | how to |
| embed John and Sally pages rather than hyperlink them | done - sort of. |
| site email - no - users can talk on the site - to anyone - or perhaps yes | . |
| user debate input | done but needs jazzing up |
| search opinion on keyword | . |
| music, speech and pictures | . |
| anti-copy? | . |
| paypal? | . |