Forum seems less active compared to 10 years ago?

[symbolipoint]

From symbolipoint

Please, mentor or moderator, give a constructive or instructive response to that.

and then from Algr

So... you are asking the authority for a response on if PF is too deferential to authority. I thank the moderators for not getting sucked into an ad hominem trap.

NO. Members, not to mention mods and admins, will strongly disagree with most of your opening post on this topic. I take your opening post as mostly the heavy exaggeration of a problem of authority and I try to invite an administrator or moderator to respond, possibly more skillfully and knowledgeably than I could.

 

[berkeman]

Thread paused for a moment...

 

[Drakkith]

If you want to help people learn critical thinking skills, you are better of going to 4chan than posting here. On 4chan you will find trolls and edgelords, but you will also find people who honestly want to learn how to evaluate an idea on its own merits, rather than just looking at which authority backs what. Physics Forums, with its emphasis on authority, is not going to be useful for that.

First, note that neither PF nor 4chan has learning critical thinking as one of their core goals, so any improvement in critical thinking is going to happen as a result of learning or doing something else. I personally don't have any way of meaningfully and accurately quantifying or measuring improvement in critical thinking, so all I really have is my personal opinion.

All I'll say is to ask this: Would you rather have a discussion where disagreement typically involves linking different journal articles and posting equations or a discussion where there is a non-insignificant chance you will be called names and continually told you're that energy/work/force/gravity/some other basic physics concept doesn't exist?

Personally I find it hard to learn anything when the other side's standards are more akin to Blue-and-Orange morality than anything else.

So you can complain about the cesspool, but you need fertilizer to grow crops. And your "heavy defecators" are often where you get your beef from. Galileo is not Bart Sibrel, but the authorities of the time are infamus for not knowing the distinction.

I call these people 'babies', and I don't find babies to be very in useful learning anything from. They smell, they throw tantrums, and you're almost always better off not arguing with them in the first place.

 

[berkeman]

Thread will remain closed. Thanks everybody.