Open Thread: Contributions Invited!

And warmly encouraged…

This site is a little quiet these days. I know it is the middle of the Summer holiday season and the impact of Covid has been devastating to normal life. But I wonder why the site is still receiving around 100 unique visits a day when seemingly fewer of those visitors are adding opening posts or leaving comments.

If anyone has thoughts about what would encourage more participation, exchange of ideas, please let’s hear from you.

15 thoughts on “Open Thread: Contributions Invited!

  1. I think people are now realizing the privilege of being able to get out and about, and so may be less inclined to spend time gazing at a screen. Interacting here can be a time consuming business. I seldom visit this site when I’m out of the house and we go out quite a lot.

    These days I tend to read a post or two and then think about what I’ve read when I’m not doing anything too taxing while I’m out and about. If anyone sees me wandering about with a vacant look on my face its just me in “the skeptical zone”. 🙂

    How about inviting those real people around us, friends, colleagues, family, if they would be stupid enough; sorry, willing to contribute.

    For myself, I have no friends 🙁 😉 no work colleagues, and my family have their own time consuming activities.

    And I’m sure there are lurkers out there who could add a thought or two even if they do not have the time to follow up on any conversations they might stimulate.

  2. CharlieM: I think people are now realizing the privilege of being able to get out and about, and so may be less inclined to spend time gazing at a screen.

    You might be right.

    I’ve been following a number of blogs. And, starting around 2 weeks ago, the number of posts has much diminished.

  3. Neil Rickert: I’ve been following a number of blogs. And, starting around 2 weeks ago, the number of posts has much diminished.

    Not just TSZ then. That’s a relief. 😉

  4. Well, because this “zone” has been uninspiring and with little value-added from the start. It’s only purpose was to exist as an alternative forum and watchdog for the “Uncommon Descent” blog, which is widely acknowledged as a cesspool for lowbrow IDists. UD couldn’t hold a serious thinker’s attention for long.

    More and more people who used to be active here are posting on “Peaceful Science” than here, as predicted, since PS is more popular than UD now.

    The only thing keeping this site going, is the time on CharlieM’s hands and his desire to interact with “skeptics” here, which still gets spent (sunk) on “spiritual science” Steinerism & fox-worship in Goethe. A strange artificial need to be fulfilled, indeed!

    This is Lizzie’s “skeptic experiment”. Not a surprise skepticism produces such a dud. Can anyone actually say they are “inspired” by visiting & posting here? I can’t, so I’ve largely stopped, and would feel no sadness or loss if it were shut down permanently. Ciao.

  5. graham2:
    And me? … Im still slogging through VJT.

    There’smore to come.

    Ask me again around Xmas.

    The tenth anniversary of TSZ is coming up before Christmas. I hope a few of us will still be here to celebrate.

  6. Gregory,

    Hi, Gregory. Appreciate the drive-by. We skeptics only have one thing in common; our scepticism. I tried to broaden our interests into chess and cuisine but…

  7. No, VJ Torley is selling his “skepticism” to Lizzie. It’s rotten through and through.

    “TSZ is as good a place in which to build it as anywhere else on the Web” – VJT

    This shows VJT can’t be trusted about what is “good” or “bad” or “harmful”, including to himself.

    No, TSZ is not a “good” place. It’s far too skeptical for that.

  8. I haven’t been active on TSZ for several reasons, but mostly because (1) I’m trying to spend much less time on-line generally; (2) in my intellectual online communities, I need to be engaged with scholars who know at least as much philosophy and cognitive science as I do, if not more; (3) my research and scholarship these days is very remote from what most people at TSZ seem to care about.

    I haven’t done any OPs about my current interests because that takes time and energy from my scholarship and teaching, and also because I doubt there would any uptake from the TSZ community. This is not to fault anyone here, obviously; I’m just doing my own thing.

    Here’s a list of the books I’ve read in the past few months, just to give you a sense of where my mind is at:

    Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy by David Bakhurst
    Designing Freedom by Stafford Beer
    The Cybernetic Hypothesis by Tiqqun
    Biological Autonomy by Moreno and Mossio
    Language and Myth by Ernst Cassirer
    The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Vol 1, Language by Ernst Cassirer
    Dialectics of the Ideal: Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism, edited Levant and Oittenen
    Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin
    The Philosophy of Living Experience by Alexander Bogdanov
    Pragmatism, Objectivity, and Experience by Steve Levine
    Sensorimotor Life by Ezequiel Di Paolo et al
    Linguistic Bodies by Ezequiel Di Paolo et al (different co-authors than above)
    Recursivity and Contingency by Yuk Hui

    So, I’ll still leave the occasional drive-by comment, but I’m not giving more of myself to TSZ besides that. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  9. I’ve got an idea for something about an ant on an elasticated rope, if anyone’s interested …

  10. Gregory:
    No, VJ Torley is selling his “skepticism” to Lizzie. It’s rotten through and through.

    This shows VJT can’t be trusted about what is “good” or “bad” or “harmful”, including to himself.

    No, TSZ is not a “good” place. It’s far too skeptical for that.

    Good place? “Good” place? Good has little meaning unless you qualify it, adding who or what you think it good for. Sure TSZ misses the input of its founder and has yet to develop a new raison-d’être but I still think “build it, they’ll come” can work better than sites with an agenda, especially religious ones, where particular views are encouraged and dissent restricted. I mean Gregory is able to promulgate and defend his world-view here if he wishes.

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