Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 10:32 pm
commonsense wrote: ↑Wed Feb 14, 2024 9:47 pm
For all 3 of you (and you know who you are) — you 3 are getting nowhere and have been for quite a few pages. I’d guess that each one of you has become frustrated by the lack of progression on display in this thread.
This does not hold at all for my experience. I haven't had much expectation regarding Age's admitting something, though I don't rule it out. But I have learned quite a bit after stopping interacting with him, even.
I have a clearly sense of what is missing from his approach to communication: which I have recently referred to as a lack of collaboration,as one example. I have also learned from what the other two elicit and notice.
One unproductive technique that has been employed in this thread lately is to repost a prior post verbatim — reposted more than once! If I were asked for one piece of advice—and I recognize that I have not—I would nonetheless say that you all should be more generous; assume innocence on the part of others.
Perhaps you should take your own advice.
I've been communicating with Age for a long time, with breaks. That communication has taken a lot of forms. And despite him regularly insulting me (and all the people of our time) there have been generous or neutral periods of communication. Further I have read exchanges with people who are truly patient and generous with him. And with good reason they get tired of his approach to a conversation and avoid him.
You assumed that we just sort of hastily arrived at a lack of generosity. Afraid not.
Further nearly every person in forum hated AGe's typography. I assume Atla is another of the 3 you are making assumptions about. It was after Atla fed him back his own typography that Age, finally decided to let go of the capitalization. The entire forum owes one of we ungenerous people for having discouraged a communication pattern that many commented on as annoying, including generous people.
Further, the three of us have put a lot of effort into communicating with Age. Yes, at this point much of it is negative or demanding on our part. But that's hardly all we've tried and further the only thing I've every seen him change in relation to was mocking: Atla's feeding him the food the feeds us. Yes, perhaps he won't learn from criticism at this point. But the option is there, of course, and he may surprise us, given his precise statement of intention to learn how to communicate better here.
And Wizard, who I assume is number 3, often asks the question about the contradiction in a neutral post. Age can freely say, Oh, I didn't mean it. Or he could in collaborative mode say he sees what Wizard means and explain how, really it isn't a contradiction. Or as you suggest simply admit a mistake.
For example, Age may not have been lying or proposing an intentional contradiction; it’s possible he made a mistake and didn’t realize the error.
He's had plenty of opportunity to give that explanation.
And instead of “you haven’t proven _____” a phrase with a softer connotation might be “I am not finding the place where you showed _____”.
Right. Did you know that I have pointed out to him several times that his demand that people prove things is confused. 1) many things are very hard to demonstrate online 2) proofs are not particularly an appropriate criterion. In relation to me, he's the one who brought up proofs. As much as I have read of the others, I can't be sure. But he certainly has expected proof again and again and even said that it is a problem that all people of this time believe things they cannot prove or haven't been proven.
I would guess that's where both Atla and Wizard have gotten the request for proof. You judge people and quite harshly Age, for not providing proof. Well, provide some yourself.
I wanted to understand his theory of The True Mind and that there is only one mind. So, despite insults and distractions, I just kept focusing on the question(s). Finally he without insults and distractions told me that he wouldn't answer my questions since they weren't worded that and implied beliefs he did not have. So, I rephrased my questions fitting the language he suggested.
Then he told me he would not prove or answer.
If other people do not demonstrate things they claim are true or believe, he judges them and not particularly nicely.
But he allows himself to do this.
So, if you had assumed perhaps not our innocence, but that we may have tried all sorts of things in communication with AGe and that however much it may seem we should not be asking for proof, this actually has to do with interactions you're not aware of. And, hey, I certainly don't expect people to have read the vast number of posts, which would probably be boring. But on the other had if our supposed assumptions are being criticized and the advice is to treat Age more innocently, then I would expect the person giving that advice to consider he isn't treating us as innocent in way he isn't aware of.
Age also said at one point that he had made a mess earlier. That could almost appear to be an apology for his mistake. At any rate, the magnanimous thing to do would have been to accept it as such.
I missed that post and that's great. It's hard to keep up with the vast amount of posts around AGe. Of course, he could, nevertheless actually apologize. Or heck just admit there's been a contradiction.
And he could take back some of his blanket judgments of everyone, which would include you, at the time this is being written.
It comes down to this: all y’all don’t have the manners that your parents should have taught you long ago.
You mean like only knowing a bit about a situation but presuming you can talk down to the people in that situation, and, in the end, implicitly being condescending about Age as well. Like he almost admitted, it could be taken as an admission.
You just did precisely what you are telling us not to do.
I encounter people who do some of the things Age does IRL. It's useful for me to learn what is actually happening, what does and does not work in relation to this, what are the hooks in it that bug me and so on.
I find this leads to me better handling those dynamics in real life. I've told Age that if he can admit these contradictions or apologize in a PM to me I would go back to interacting with him. I don't rule that out. But it's also not necessary for me. And actually learning that has taken a long time. My parents, who were lovely people and more polite than me, also got used on occasion by people with precisely the kinds of patterns that occur in forums like this one.
