Set forth below is the text of a comment that I recently posted to the discussion thread for another blog entry at this site:
No, that’s what IT people call a solution in search of a problem. Everyone can already post honestly. Everyone, that is, with the tiny exception of that handful of cranks who absolutely will not behave in a civil manner. Cranks have always been shunned, and always will be shunned, and rightly so.
Just for clarity, here is the first part of the Wikipedia entry for “cranks”:
“Crank is a pejorative term used for a person who holds an unshakable belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held as to be considered ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making any rational debate a futile task and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference.”
I especially like that last sentence. Bullseye. They don’t come any more futile and impervious than you.
Please mark me down as believing that the crank who was recently awarded the Nobel prize in Economics might be on to something.
Rob
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