Radical debate chatline

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You can talk to John and Sally here - about anything - (they're totally rational - and ever so nice) - or chat in an existing subject group - or stand on a table and give a speech (you idiot) - or chat to one of our personalities - Reg the barman (conservative commonsense), Marge the barman's wife (fascist), Shirley the Kiwi temporary student bar assistant (intuitive), Binkie (chatline veteran), myself your editor JC (virtually normal - according to my shrink, the last time they let him out - left-wing outbursts). Others will emerge.

John, Sally, Reg, Marge, Shirley, Binkie and JC are fictitious characters invented by the author. All other characters, including the author, actually exist and their words and views are their own, they claim.
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Latest comment is on top. Say whatever you like here. I sometimes delete comments I don't like.
No.TimeSubjectComment
187515/12/2008 04:23:43Chat at barShirl: Ooh.
187415/12/2008 04:20:55Chat at barJC: That's his penny-farthing parked outside against my SUV.
187315/12/2008 04:18:03Chat at barSally: Yeah. Carrying a birdcage under one arm and a grandfather clock under the other.
187215/12/2008 04:14:58Chat at barJohn: I see Gulson has decided to grace us with his presence.
187114/12/2008 16:27:22Gulsonalia

there are - apparently - two certainties: taxes and death. For one, a good accountant can ease the uncertainty. For the other, there is no respite. Modernity offers no preparation.

For our second inevitability there is certainly, less (certainty).

For which we get a good priest, read poetry, get stoned (not to death just to highness, upon which such definition is high), find spirituality, find spirits and drink, or live out our days in admirable cuntness (once new a word for doing the right thing but forgot it and the c word says it all).

so check this out: when we die we move away from linearity. Liberation has no memory. We cannot work, sleep, eat. Save, spend, consume, get poor/rich. Extrapolate metaphor upon something which is non-extrapolatable. We cannot say our dear departed old cunt of a relative will be having a drink on us: five sensations die for an intuitive consciousness we are unaware

187009/12/2008 10:03:21Gulsonaliathere is no society or culture - there are only approximations we make of each other
186924/11/2008 22:37:36Chat at barShirley: Short-termism.
186824/11/2008 22:35:16Chat at barEfrem: Look at the current economic system. The 'credit crunch'. Lenders making money by lending money they haven't got to borrowers who can't pay it back. Everyone owes everyone else. The only solution they can see is to 'stimulate the economy' by 'making the credit flow' i.e. encouraging people to borrow even more. It's a system that runs on fear and vacuous envy.
186724/11/2008 22:21:07Chat at barMohammed: Canned opinion as commodity.
186624/11/2008 22:19:23Chat at barShirley: Outspoken advocacy of the status quo.
186524/11/2008 22:14:32Chat at barJohn: A race to the start line.
186424/11/2008 22:11:40Chat at barSally: Stasis in infinitessimal increments.
186324/11/2008 22:09:37Chat at barJC: The sheer involuted nothingness of it all.
186224/11/2008 22:05:07chat at barBinkie: Me too. Lack of thought masquerading as commonsense.
186124/11/2008 22:02:30Chat at barEfrem: Petit bourgeois mediocrity is acidifying my mind.
186015/11/2008 15:14:22Nuclear NigelNuclear Nigel Can computers drink, I know they can computer date but can they drink and if so how drunk do they get?
185923/10/2008 13:22:01Generating new ideasSally: Don't forget all living things are pre-programmed to a large extent by their genetic inheritance. That set of instructions - that 'software' - predisposes them to certain behaviour. I suppose there is relatively little scope for hypothesis-forming in an amoeba. They're not gonna turn round and, like, invent calculus or sell each other tracker mortgages.
185823/10/2008 13:17:04Generating new ideasJohn: What about an amoeba - a single-cell animal - does that machine generate new ideas? Does it have hypotheses it modifies and tests in experience?
185723/10/2008 13:14:57Generating new ideasSally: I'd say all living things do it to some extent.
185623/10/2008 13:12:58Generating new ideasJohn: Yes. What hardware and software do you need to generate new and useful ideas?
185523/10/2008 13:11:51Generating new ideasSally: ... and if we want to continue the traditional mind/body dichotomy, what software?
185423/10/2008 13:09:55Generating new ideasJohn: Yeah - what hardware's necessary?
185323/10/2008 13:09:14Generating new ideasSally: What kinds of objects can do that?
185223/10/2008 13:07:46Generating new ideasJohn: Yes, thesis (pre-existing opinion) - hypothetical negation of that thesis (what if not?) - experiment (is it really like that?) - modification of thesis ...
185123/10/2008 13:02:55Generating new ideasSally: But history was once now. A new idea can happen. Before a certain moment it never existed; after it it did. How did that happen? Perhaps new ideas come from a clash of old ideas plus experience. What's the mechanism? Could you make a computer generate a new and useful idea? Some poets seem to do it by merely playing with words. Is that what scientists do too? Thesis - antithesis - thesis - and so on? Could you get a robot to do that?
185019/10/2008 20:43:58Generating new ideasideas are history's residual value
184913/10/2008 18:19:38Good and badcontinuum
184812/10/2008 21:07:23Good and badGod got fragmented. Through Babel. Thats why we use words. To put God back together again after a fall. Liquidity! Revolution! Transformation!
184708/10/2008 10:40:07Good and badNuclear Nigel yes there is a God that created this universe and the multiverse
184608/10/2008 10:38:59Good and badGood God there is a God well according to stephen hawking and einstein
184508/10/2008 10:36:38Good and badNuclear Nigel Good idea buy a book Bad idea hit your friend over the head with an enclophedia
184407/10/2008 17:55:49Nuclear NigelTimes ticking can you correct my spelling of continiumn? sorry a little drunk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
184307/10/2008 17:54:21Nuclear NigelNuclear Nigel Continium
184207/10/2008 17:53:05Nuclear NigelNuclear Nigel Define space-time in a word
184106/10/2008 17:48:51Good and badrubbish!
184030/09/2008 23:46:47General chatAnyone on here tried reading political economist Ricardo? Here's a quote: " If I have to hire a labourer for a week, and instead of ten shillings I pay him eight, no variation having taken place in the value of money, the labourer can probably obtain more food and necessaries, with his eight shillings, than he before obtained for ten." No wonder the market economies are in turmoil.
183614/09/2008 23:39:13Gulsonalia[a mood engulfs the bar that is somewhere between dazed indifference and thoughtless introspection - just like 1969]
183514/09/2008 23:34:18GulsonaliaJohn: You can see how the contemporary Subjective Idealists would misinterpret that. They would infer that they just needed to imagine their way out of the 'situation'.
183414/09/2008 23:23:11GulsonaliaSally: Correct me if I'm wrong - didn't the early Situationists have a point? They said that the Western CP's - of all hues - were interested only in building their own power base and had in fact become a part of the Establishment, putting off revolution by saying the conditions weren't right, when in fact the only thing holding it back was consciousness?
183314/09/2008 23:13:15GulsonaliaBinkie: Piss artists to a man.
183214/09/2008 23:11:31GulsonaliaJohn: Not really an artistic movement per se.
183114/09/2008 23:10:09GulsonaliaSally: I quite liked the early Situationists. 1968 and all that.
183014/09/2008 23:08:17Gulsonalia[general uproar]
182914/09/2008 23:07:41GulsonaliaBinkie: Not forgetting the remaining remnants of the Situationists.
182814/09/2008 23:05:48GulsonaliaJohn: And the latter-day Psychogeographists and Lettrists.
182714/09/2008 23:03:35GulsonaliaSally: He might have a point in the case of the Surrealists.
182614/09/2008 23:01:46GulsonaliaAll: What's he on about?
182514/09/2008 23:00:46GulsonaliaGulson: Art is madness.
182402/09/2008 18:54:28ChinaSally: Re: 1301. Yes. The fact that people hold different and conflicting views and definitions about a topic does not imply it's impossible to be objective - to understand things as they are. It just means that peoples' views are not always right, i.e. accurate.
182325/08/2008 11:52:25Good and badSally: ... it appears to be well-defined - only one meaning.

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