SMILIES pro versus con

Originally Posted by Flint

I tried to present this beyond the level of wrong or bad.

No, you didn't. You came right out and said they degrade the user's humanity. I haver no problem with you hating smilies. Go ahead and hate them, but please don't tell me that you presented the topic neutrally when you used a negatively loaded term like "degrading to the user's humanity."

[wolf]

Originally Posted by Flint

"First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye"

Is there some corollary to Godwin's Law that references biblical quoting and/or allusions?

[keryx]

Quote from Flint's post #24:
Originally Posted by keryx
There's nothing wrong with using smilies.

I tried to present this beyond the level of wrong or bad.


Quote:
Originally Posted by keryx
please get that stick out of your ass

"First remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye"


Was there some problem with the length of my post that you couldn't post the quotes from it completely? I know how you like all your posts taken in their entirety to keep the context and nuance relevant.

I said:There's nothing wrong with using smilies. They are just another toy to use in the sandbox.

Which means that like most things they are a tool to be used good or ill by the person that uses them. They in themselves have no good/evil or right/wrong.

I said:If you don't like them, don't use them, but please get that stick out of your ass.

Which means I like smilies, I think they are fun. I don't think anyone should be obliged to like them or use them, but I think that someone who does protest so loudly regarding them has lost a sense of fun.

What a pity.

[Flint]

@marichiko: No, I didn't say that. I didn't say I hate smilies, and I didn't say that the use of smilies always constitues a degradation of the user's humanity. Read the words more carefully, and in context.

What I'm driving at is that real life is more nuanced than black and white. I didn't say I was neutral, clearly I stated an opinion, but it wasn't am articficially polarized opinion, it was an invitation to a substantive discussion, IE how are advances in technology changing the way people communicate?

Originally Posted by Flint

@marichiko: No, I didn't say that. I didn't say I hate smilies, and I didn't say that the use of smilies always constitues a degradation of the user's humanity. Read the words more carefully, and in context.

What I'm driving at is that real life is more nuanced than black and white. I didn't say I was neutral, clearly I stated an opinion, but it wasn't am articficially polarized opinion, it was an invitation to a substantive discussion, IE how are advances in technology changing the way people communicate?

Well, go back and read post no. lucky 13, and then maybe we can talk. I'll wait. A minute or two, anyhow.

[Cheyenne]

[TiddyBaby]

*wonders what the guy with the big ears, is doing with that guy from David Lynches "Eraserhead"*

[cowhead]

for what it's worth I am pro-smiley as long as they are used to actually more fully articulate a point, as the subtile body language is beyond my capabilities to capture using text alone.

[Flint]

Yes, cowhead, I agree that there is a need for communicating these nuances. Although, I'm not convinced that smilies are the best solution.

[Trilby]

I've a stomach ache. I blame it on this non-thread.

Deconstruction. That's what they are all about. Or, quasi-deconstruction.

[Flint]

@keryx: I think full quotes are not necesary. Anyone can scroll up and read your post in it's entirity. I don't shorten quotes to change their meaning, I do it to specify which part I am responding to. If I had a comment on the entirity of your post I would have quoted it in full. I read, and understood your post, and not expressly acknowledging certain parts does not constitue a disagreement on my part with the parts I didn't quote. In other words, when I agree with you, there is no need to comment. A useful discussion arrives at an agreement by hashing out the points where a disagreement is percieved. It's a back-and-forth thing.

And again, what you are referring to with the suggestive phrase "protests so loudly" is that I have strong feelings against smilies or the use thereof, which I don't, as evidenced by the fact that I never said I did. If I had said that, you can quote me.

See, that's a joke. Get it? I'm turning the thing you got huffy about into a fun thing. As it turns out, fun and humor are subjective things. Different people will not experience them in the same way. And since we cannot read each other's minds theough the internet, nobody can determine whether another person is having fun or not, without projecting their own point-of-view on the other person.

[DiscoFever]

Originally Posted by Flint

And since we cannot read each other's minds theough the internet, nobody can determine whether another person is having fun or not, without projecting their own point-of-view on the other person.

Hense the use of smilies so there can be no misunderstanding as just to how something that's written is to be taken.

PS. Your joke went over my head...:p

[Flint]

@DiscoFever: You caught the funnier concept, though (smilies as a solution to the dilemma).

[DiscoFever]

I did? Well bugger me...

[TiddyBaby]

Jenny?