Random thoughts
I've been stuck sick in bed for a few days now (but I am getting better now!) and so all the thoughts that normally I might find someone to comment to about, and so clarify the notion and move on, are filling up my head and copulating with each other. Mix in a bit of sickness-induced fuzzy-headedness and this is what comes out. This gets a bit meta
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2) Being silent prior to thinking carefully to clarify my thoughts as to avoid hurting people is foreign to my nature. I usually talk things out and clarify my thoughts as I'm speaking. As such, I often say things that are easily misinterpreted and lead to hurting people, including you. That said, this is one of the more natural things for Ryan and I'm doing my best to learn from him from him. He says the reason he was so quiet our sophomore, his freshman, year was that by the time he had his thoughts figured out the conversation had moved on such that his thoughts were no longer relevant. I also hope I'm encouraging him to speak up more, since I really do care about his ideas and opinions.
3) Extremists scare me too. If I've figured out that a person I know has extremist views about a topic and they aren't interested in actually having a discussion, then I avoid the topic as much as possible. If an argument starts to arise, I don't take the bait and if it's not working, I leave. Fortunately, most of the people I associate with aren't extremists (at least not in any way they've discussed, so either they aren't extremists or they're silent extremists, which is generally contrary to extremism).
4) Everyone does things that others find annoying on occasion and the best you can do is try to stop the complaining and open another dialog. Your point system is interesting. I also think the point mods should be interchanged. The person who is perpetuating the complaining should take the -1 and the person who is the cause should get -1/2. That way people would complain less about others and find more constructive ways to voice criticism. I agree with you on your mods for insulting others though. Discussions don't get anywhere when they regress to 1st grade name calling and "uh-huh / nu-uh".
5) I apologize for rambling, particularly if you don't find it on topic at all. I just finished my first grant and my brain is taking a break from biogoly and is trying to find an outlet to release all of its tension, kind of similarly as to how sickness leads to thoughts building up that need to escape.
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