Amazing !

[<balvenieman]

My apologies to you, et al; I cut, perhaps, to fine a line. Certainly did not mean to imply exclusivity or elitism.

[phorbin]

Blocking a domain seems a bit extreme to me.

Some of the best people in my favourite newsgroups use eternal-september to post because their ISPs dropped USENET and the economy has taken a toll.

I figure most worthwhile people will get a clue if they didn't have it to start with.

[Charlie]

And once it means something, where does that leave us?

I guess this was my point, regarding the death of the Usenet, not so clearly explained (only a statement that I left to others to interpret) as in several of your posts in this thread. This applies not only to the Usenet, but to many systems and media, and in a broader sense, society in general.

At what point do we go Bageant and basically abandon technology and try to live life on a day to day basis...on a basic basis, as most of the people on this planet live? What advantage do we gain, powerless as we are and likely will remain, by having access to "news" and info exchange that may be of questionable reliabilility?

Perhaps you would find the following of interest, perhaps not...Joe's reply to the poster's questioning has meaning for me.

As an american and fed a diet of lies and revisionism, having my worldview and personal viewpoint shaped by such for so many decades, I don't know that it is possible for me to have an objective view of the world. It is a struggle to even understand what must be unlearned while learning.

"There are truths on this side of the Pyranees, which are falsehoods on the other." ~ Blaise Pascal

[David Hare-Scott]

I have such flashes of analytic certitude myself from time to time. But you are too reticent prefixing it with "IMO" no need to hedge because you can't go wrong. I love things like that, everybody needs a little automagic wisdom to fill in that void before their first coffee. It's a kind of blind-baked snap-frozen aphorism, it will keep for ages and you dig it out whenever visitors appear unexpectedly. You fill it with whatever is handy, a few minutes in the oven and voila!

To save time here is one that I prepared earlier:

"This kind of will mean nothing until it means something."

Now all take one, they are free today, and after you have tasted it fill in the blank with whatever you wish.

David

[Billy]

Or just back to our roots and bio-diversity, even if it is contrived. Monocultures and faux food are killing us, and support a predatory class.

[Billy]

Facile conversation or deep insight, who knows. Another way to look at it is as a tipping point, where nothing matters, until there is no getting your ol' familiar cage back. Good conversation for a full bottle, while waiting.

[Billy]

An adjunct to how far we have strayed from the garden, presented by an endocrinologist; Sugar: the Bitter Truth