June 20th episode - Stan Friedman & Kathleen Marden

[cottonzway]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

You missed the point. I didn't ban him because he disagreed with me. Indeed, a lot of you disagree with me, and I haven't banned you. I banned him because he was a troll, with all that the term implies, and because he posted patently false and wholly out-of-context information and then refused to address it when it was brought to his attention - instead, he just ignored it and continued with his rants. That's not how you promote constructive debate.

He's gone. Everyone needs to get over it.

I didn't miss your point. I just strongly disagree with you. He said the same thing for years. Those are his views and he is not trolling. What I am really taking issue with, Paul, is you are doing the same thing to him that the previous co-host did to him after ripping that guy for the reasons you stated.

Oh well.........

 

[Paul Kimball]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

You missed the point. I didn't ban him because he disagreed with me. Indeed, a lot of you disagree with me, and I haven't banned you. I banned him because he was a troll, with all that the term implies, and because he posted patently false and wholly out-of-context information and then refused to address it when it was brought to his attention - instead, he just ignored it and continued with his rants. That's not how you promote constructive debate.

He's gone. Everyone needs to get over it.

One final thing...

Lest anyone think that I'm picking on poor little Pixelsmith, let me be clear that I've never stood for people who selectively quote out of context, or in a way that changes the meaning of the original statement.

And I've never had a problem saying so.

http://redstarfilms.blogspot.com/2005/09/nam-et-ipsa-scientia-potestas-est.html

---------- Post added at 12:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:49 AM ----------

I didn't miss your point. I just strongly disagree with you. He said the same thing for years. Those are his views and he is not trolling. What I am really taking issue with, Paul, is you are doing the same thing to him that the previous co-host did to him after ripping that guy for the reasons you stated.

Oh well.........

I'm sorry, but it's not just a question of having a point of view where we're all working from the same, accurate evidence. It's about twisting that evidence to support your view.

Where I come from, that's called lying, and it isn't tolerated.

Maybe it's different where you're from.

 

[Michael Allen]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

While the ETH is a valid hypothesis, no, I'm not convinced that it's more likely than not, which is what the "balance of probabilities" means, that aliens are coming here from "there." Some of those cases you cite are indeed interesting (I don't think much of O'Hare, or Socorro, and definitely not of Braxton County), but as they stand they are still a long way from providing evidence of alien visitation, even on the BoP standard of proof.

That's a problem. By what probability metric do you show that BoP isn't established for ETH using something as basic as Richard Hall's "The UFO Evidence" (for instance)?
I am not sure a civil law standard of proof applies here--certainly not from the point of view of science. The ET hypothesis is one possible answer to a scientific question--not a legal one involving arbitration between two adversarial agents.

A better formulation might involve some statement leading into some kind of Bayesian inference--or any other estimation method concerning probabilities for which we have very little information. But then again we have to enumerate as many possible hypotheses before we start ticking them off one by one or at least assigning some kind of "subjective probability" to each.

As such, I would probably lean more to the side of simple interstellar travel (i.e. applying Occam's razor) as a possible "source" of this phenomenon than magic, angels, ghosts, goblins, ...or interdimensional beings.

Then again, I would wager some of the worst critics of ETH also happen to believe that God sent heavenly beings to earth to communicate to mankind.

 

[cottonzway]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

I'm sorry, but it's not just a question of having a point of view where we're all working from the same, accurate evidence. It's about twisting that evidence to support your view.

Where I come from, that's called lying, and it isn't tolerated.

Maybe it's different where you're from.

It must be different from where Lance and Kieran are from as well then as they seem to agree with my assessment on this as well.

 

[Paul Kimball]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

It must be different from where Lance and Kieran are from as well then as they seem to agree with my assessment on this as well.

The great thing is that you're free to exercise your opinion... which proves my point.

 

[Kieran]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Weak and lame to ban Pixel IMO. You are doing exactly what DB did to him, Paul. After your rant on David (which largely I agreed on even though I did like David on this show in general, but your points were valid), I would have figured you better then to follow the same exact pattern on the same poster. Not agreeing does not translate to trolling. To ban a member here that has been here for years for those reasons is weak. It was weak when Biedney did it and it is weak now. How hard is it to ignore someone here? It is a button click away from not having to read the posts of posters you do not wish to read or engage with. If you can do that because you have to be able to view all posters as a site admin then simply ask him not to reply to you anymore. If he does not respect your wishes, then act accordingly. I am quite disappointed in the site setting this precedent.

Cotton you have to admit Pixel was reveling in calling Paul names. He tended to be more aggressive in his wording when it came Paul. I remember reading a post were he said Paul your only a Pussy from Canada and i do believe that is what he said? I'm not sorry to see him gone, when he posts stuff like that. I only miss him, and Yes Miss him,because he was so head strong in his views, and he was willing to fight his corner. But the problem is, with that stance.

"Nobody is right on everything, and sometimes you have to accept your wrong in places. But Pixel, He continued every time on posting, even after he knew, and everyone else knew he lost certain debates, and in the process after finishing his last post, would rant and abuse a forum member, he was debating with. Pixel is a man short of some Charisma, maybe if he had some, he would have less problems getting his points across?

 

[cottonzway]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

We all know that everything that ends with a means it is with humor, thus voids the real attempt at being nasty.

For example:

You are all a bunch of jerks!

See?

 

[cottonzway]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Yes. It was in the thread about MMA.

---------- Post added at 01:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:29 AM ----------

I think it might be fair to make a different thread on this as some of us seem to want to talk about this stuff, but this is seriously going to clutter the talk about that episode.

 

[Kieran]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

We all know that everything that ends with a means it is with humor, thus voids the real attempt at being nasty.

For example:

You are all a bunch of jerks!

See?

I don't know, sometimes his rants were void of humor, just my opinion. I have no problems with Pixel, i do not care either way if he posts here or not. Most of us here have never met and frequently i not going to upset about a person i have never met in my life. I like coming here because this subject has some meaning to me, and what to discuss it a meaningful way with like minded Individuals. I never had a meaningful debate with Pixel so so!!!

Cotton i have had interesting conversations with you in the past,and you have never been insulting to other members, as far as, i am aware of? Lance was Banned by David from what i remember, so he is being slightly biased in his outlook now towards Pixel. I actually prefer to have a conversation with Lance then Pixel, even though Lance, does get on my nerves sometimes with some of his logic.

 

[Paul Kimball]

June 20th: A plea to Gene and Paul

Let me be clear, because people don't seem to be getting it. I didn't ban Pixelsmith because of anything he said about me, or because he disagreed with me. I'm in the film industry, for God's sake - if I got upset everytime someone went after me or disagreed with me, I would have gone mad a long time ago.

Pixelsmith was banned because he posted clearly false information and then refused to take responsibility for it. Plain and simple. Yes, he had been given considerable rope up until now... which shows that this wasn't some arbitrary decision. He just finally found a straw that broke the camel's proverbial back.

As for that other thread Lance mentioned, I've had it with people bringing up that quitter Biedny. Folks here are not privy to the whole story because Gene has shown some class and refused to get involved. But I was there when Biedny left Gene high and dry with virtually no warning. It was Biedny who tried to destroy the show - not Gene. That Gene had four friends - Greg, Nick, Chris and myself - who stepped in to help him keep it going should tell you something. How many would Biedny have managed to rustle up on short notice?

So, I saw the thread after Gene had closed it, but wanted to finally lay it all out there, because no-one has really stood up and called Biedny out for what he did, and what he was.

Again, if you don't like it, you can always go listen to Biedny's "Angry Human" podcast.

Finally, I've banned four people in six months. That's hardly a baning jihad.

One specifically asked to be banned, so I obliged (simonemendez). Jose Collado absolutely deserved it. And so did Pixelsmith, for the reasons I've cited. Vampireliketendencies (aka Jeffery Pritchett) was here plugging his show wherein Biedny defamed Gene. That was an easy call.

No apologies.

Now, as Cottonzway has suggested, if someone wants to start another thread about Pixelsmith, go right ahead. Any further comments on this thread on that subject - which is about the June 20th show - will be removed, or, if another thread is started, moved there.