This thread is about both evolution and politics, read description.

[surreptitious75]

That 9000 word text could be improved upon by some serious editing
Would you therefore consider the possibility of reducing it to something more concise - preferably its absolute minimum
Would you also consider the possibility of not linking all subject matter together as if they were somehow interconnected

You want it to be the most accurate theory of everything but admit to not actually being an expert in everything - though no one is
Do you not think that might be somewhat problematic and should you therefore become more educated on what you do not know

Are you prepared to accept constructive criticism from everyone here in order to help you with this project of yours
Can you actually recognise the difference between constructive criticism and ad hominem as they are not the same

Have you received feedback from anywhere else and if so what was the reaction

 

[Sparhafoc]

The great irony here is that of all the forums Isaac chose (although I expect we're not the only one) - he actually encountered someone with a 20+ year career consisting partly of training professionals to present their ideas, partly of developing and creating projects which I then pitch to professional audiences, and partly as a lecturer who not only prepares and presents curricula to present to classes, but those classes also happen to be about human evolution.

What are the chances of that?

So lucky, and then he goes and shoves his head up his arse.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Have you received feedback from anywhere else and if so what was the reaction

Does a thumbs-down on YT count?

 

[Sparhafoc]

I'm a little lost, who agreed about what?

Not going to be believed by the doctors who have to find a way to extricate your cranium from your rectum.

 

[*SD*]

Not going to be believed by the doctors who have to find a way to extricate your cranium from your rectum.

You keep ignoring the FACT that he's right about everything. Why? Can't you see how he's RIGHT? He has told us he's right, several times after all. And if an "I'm right" assertion isn't the holy grail of sensible discourse, I'll be jiggered if I know what is.

 

[Isaac Clarke]

theory of everything

Not a theory of everything.

Would you therefore consider the possibility of reducing it to something more concise - preferably its absolute minimum

You're free to try, because the .txt file is part of just half of the overall video project, which is not JUST a video project, but includes external links to other "things that I've made" and to other sources that I linked.

and should you therefore become more educated on what you do not know

I cannot know everything, even with an infinity of time, unless I find a way to modify my body. I talked just and only about the things that I know and that are relevant in the project.

prepared to accept constructive criticism from everyone

Yes.

Can you actually recognise the difference between constructive criticism and ad hominem as they are not the same

Yes, the former is about pointing out mistakes and show where something may be improved, the latter is to giggle like a little girl, pointing and laughing, calling me a poopoo head because I don't have a doll house and then leave while smelling one's own farts.

Have you received feedback from anywhere else and if so what was the reaction

About this project? No. I came here for that reason too.

About other things? Yes, and I explained in the intro how it usually goes.

 

[Sparhafoc]

About other things? Yes, and I explained in the intro how it usually goes.

There's a single consistent component, and no it's not that everyone else is an asshole.

 

[*SD*]

and I explained

Comic

 

[*SD*]

and no it's not that everyone else is an asshole.

BUT IT IS! IT IS! I've declared such several times! LISTEN TO ME!

 

[Sparhafoc]

They just don't understand his greatness.

 

[surreptitious75]

I hope that you take some of the constructive criticism offered to you on board as you indicated in your very first post upon the forum
And that you use it to improve upon this project of yours otherwise both this thread and your time here will have all been for nothing
Accepting criticism is never easy but it is necessary to becoming a better human being as no one after all has a monopoly on wisdom

You should stay here as this is such a tiny forum and also it is always good to have someone who thinks differently to the status quo - but this is ultimately for you to decide
But whatever you do decide I wish you all the best with your project and hope that the finished article will be the absolute best that you can make it - whenever that will be

 

[Isaac Clarke]

Accepting criticism is never easy

False. At least for me it's very easy, but the majority of people either don't recognize the difference between an insult and criticism or try to fool others that they are criticizing while really they are insulting.

as this is such a tiny forum

From what Aron said I had the impression that this was a pretty large platform.

good to have someone who thinks differently to the status quo

The fact about thinking differently is that, no matter if you've good or bad ideas, the reason why you are the one different from the majority is because the majority thinks differently from you, so it's no use if nobody listens or can't understand.

and hope that the finished article will be the absolute best that you can make it - whenever that will be

I don't get what you're saying here. My project is complete as it is.

 

[Sparhafoc]

False. At least for me it's very easy, but the majority of people either don't recognize the difference between an insult and criticism or try to fool others that they are criticizing while really they are insulting.

Everyone can freely read that I offered you constructive criticism and made no insults towards you at all.

You responded by calling me names, explaining away the criticism by recasting it as something to do with my comprehension, my attention span, my reading ability etc. and then you proceeded to act like a spoiled little brat by then ignoring me.

It's all there in black and white: you can't revise written history.

The hard fact is that you take criticism of your presentation as a personal insult, which means you are as far away as it's possible to be from being willing to accept criticism.

 

[Sparhafoc]

The fact about thinking differently is that, no matter if you've good or bad ideas, the reason why you are the one different from the majority is because the majority thinks differently from you, so it's no use if nobody listens or can't understand.

And the onus remains on you to ensure that your ideas are presented cogently. No use complaining that no one gets you if your presentation is the very reason your ideas are not amenable to acceptance.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Examples of Narcissistic Personality Disorder Symptom Manifestations - YouTube

I'm beginning to think this is the most complete explanation.

That would also explain why this big earth-shattering idea requires a 3000 word description of himself: it's a vanity project.

 

[Deleted member 619]

Not going to be believed by the doctors who have to find a way to extricate your cranium from your rectum.

Speaking as one of the internet's foremost consultants in craniorectal surgery, this is very much a three bag problem.

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Since we're here anyway, I have a few dense college textbooks which I'm supposed to derive information from. Any suggestions as to how one might go about this in a useful way? I'm not gonna lie, the writing can lull me to sleep at points.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Since we're here anyway, I have a few dense college textbooks which I'm supposed to derive information from. Any suggestions as to how one might go about this in a useful way? I'm not gonna lie, the writing can lull me to sleep at points.

Oh no problem at all. I can tell you the most comprehensive and easy way to consume and process information - the techniques teachers don't want you to hear.

But before I do that, I just first want to tell you about the life and loves of a dog that lived down the road from me when I was young. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a time.... a time when dogs roamed the Earth looking for treats, for small puddles of muddy water to roll around in, and most of all, for love. So this one particular dog who was owned by the nice gentleman at number 23 who'd sadly lost his wife in a tragic refrigeration accident the year before, but then people had been telling her it wasn't safe, and would she listen? That's the problem with folks these days, well, those days - they just have no patience, no attention span... John... that was his name! No, not the dog, the dog's owner, and his wife - may Vishnu preserve her soul - was called Sally. Are you still with me - I fear I might be covering too much ground too quickly?

 

[Greg the Grouper]

Oh no problem at all. I can tell you the most comprehensive and easy way to consume and process information - the techniques teachers don't want you to hear.

But before I do that, I just first want to tell you about the life and loves of a dog that lived down the road from me when I was young. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was a time.... a time when dogs roamed the Earth looking for treats, for small puddles of muddy water to roll around in, and most of all, for love. So this one particular dog who was owned by the nice gentleman at number 23 who'd sadly lost his wife in a tragic refrigeration accident the year before, but then people had been telling her it wasn't safe, and would she listen? That's the problem with folks these days, well, those days - they just have no patience, no attention span... John... that was his name! No, not the dog, the dog's owner, and his wife - may Vishnu preserve her soul - was called Sally. Are you still with me - I fear I might be covering too much ground too quickly?

Did Joe have to put his pet pig down?

 

[Deleted member 619]

Which begs the question of why you're not getting on with explaining your model.

The explanation should follow the description. Where's the description? I've read lots about you, but I have no idea of what your idea is. Are you presenting you or your idea? I'm sure your intent is the latter, but the impact is the former thus far.

That's not what's happening here. We genuinely get that communicating ideas can be hard. Trust me, we here know that better than anyone, because we all present complicated technical stuff for lay audiences. It's pretty much what we do and who we are here.

The important thing that you could be taking away here is that, if we can actually drill down to what it is you're trying to tell the world, we can actually help you improve your presentation, because we've all been where you are (at least, assuming there's an idea in there.

Does it not concern you that the members here, who not only most definitely have heard things about politics, but have between them definitely forgotten more about evolution than anybody you've ever met has known, are struggling to get to the meat of your idea? Seriously, I don't think there's an active member who hasn't written between thousands and millions of words on the subject. For example, I have on post on my blog purely about evolution, read almost 20,000 times on a niche science blog, and recommended by university level academics as an evolution primer to their students.

This is not your average venue. We breathe this shit. If you have a good idea, we can help you find it and tease it out to a presentable format. Including, for example, where to go to find the data you'd need, the best language to use to express your ideas including all the terms of art and technical jargon...

If you have a solid idea about politics and evolution, I want it; I need it. However, I'm always guided by Einstein's admonition; if you can't explain it to a six year-old, you don't understand it well enough.

It really is that straightforward. I can explain Special Relativity to a six year-old.

This does exactly the opposite of helping. Epistemology is pragmatic. The idea should stand or fall on its own merits. Either it has legs or it doesn't, regardless not only of your personal ideology but also, critically, regardless of whether your ideology is what motivated it. The only things relevant are the data and whether they support your thesis.

Which reminds me; what is your thesis? Write me an abstract. Look at an academic paper and see how it's done.



1. Problem
2. Proposed solution
3. Mechanism
4. Data.
5. Conclusion.

Even if you're writing informally, your presentation should follow roughly this format. It's fine to present in a conversational, informal tone (I do it all the time, with jokes), but the layout should have some sort of linear coherence. This is what we mean by 'rambling'. Your presentation seems to leap from place to place and only ever seems to obliquely gesture in the vague direction of the existence of an idea without ever voicing what it is as far as I can tell, and with perpetual digression to biographical information that can't possibly have any bearing on the idea. It makes it impossible to pull a thread through it.

Let me show you, with on of my shorter offerings on a simple but not obvious idea about evolution and thermodynamics:

All Downhill From Here!

As you can see, brief preamble to allude to earlier writing on the subject explaining why this was being covered separately from the more complete post on evolution and thermodynamics, then straight into the idea, which is expressed up front unambiguously. This is how every presentation should start. State up front in the most accurate terms possible and in a single sentence the limiting idea, so that the reader/listener has something to hold onto throughout. You don't even have a title that alludes to the idea, so there's no fixed point to give context at any point in the piece, or at least as far as I could be bothered to get before I glazed for the third and final time.

Even the rambling, which was excessive even to somebody like myself who goes off on thousand-word tangents routinely, is at least mitigated to some degree by having that central theme to cling to, the idea that gives context to everything you're saying.

It's fine to ramble, it really is, but it's not fine if your entire presentation is ramble with nothing to connect the dots between opening and conclusion, you're not communicating, you're talking past your audience. Your idea is worthless if you can't present it. Many's the genius buried a fool for want of words, as they say. Actually, they don't, I just made that up, which doesn't diminish the truth of it.

That sort of thing shouldn't be anywhere near your opening presentation. They should be reserved for an appendix. Why? Because they constitute ramble here, but also for academic reasons, in that it's silly to restrict yourself up front when you have no idea what might motivate you to change your mind, such as a troublesome question from a knowledgeable academic who likes your idea but sees pitfalls. Saving them for an appendix allows you both to explain why you didn't (tensing it this way circumvents the potential for future contradictions) and cuts out the irrelevant rambling. Your opening should be contained to your idea and the problem you think it solves.

If it's more than two hours like this, I'd posit your thesis could be written on a post-it note. The signal-to-noise ratio is orders of magnitude out of balance.

If you sent a book with an intro like this to a publisher with whom you already had a book deal, they'd be seeking legal advice on escaping from contract. It's awful. Sorry. It simply doesn't convey anything useful.

Unstructured is what your intro is. It has exactly zero structure. It's only the waffle holding it together.

The people here can help you. I won't be offering any more unless and until you show a little humility and academic integrity. The way you've behaved here would get you tossed out of any university on your ear.

You need to work on your flounce, dear.

Just in case, Isaac, and now that the blindfold has been unceremoniously ripped off, you may find this useful from earlier in the thread. It's pretty direct, and I don't pull any punches, but this is the constructive criticism you need.


FYI, I did go back and ick a point later on and read to the end, but most of what I could find didn't really help. We're now eleven pages into the thread and we've made zero progress.

Can you express your idea in some sort of coherent, single statement? Nothing extraneous, nothing about what motivates you, or why you think it, just a single statement of what it is that you think is true that you want to tell the world. I don't need explanations of the theory of evolution nor its many implications. I don't need physics lessons. Take it for granted that, if my understanding of any field that applies to your idea is deficient, I will rectify that deficiency immediately through proper study. No topics have yet come up in your dissertation that I feel warrant further study.

Just one statement. Your idea should, if it has any legs at all, be expressible in a single statement that you think is true about the world. If you can't do that, you don't have anything.

Just as an example, my statement of the idea expressed in the blog post I linked there would be something like:

"Life and evolution, far from being a violation of the law of entropy, are actually a manifestation of the law of entropy in action."

Simple, unambiguous, self-contained. A complete statement of everything in that post with everything other than the central idea stripped away. Can you do that?

When your entire introduction is about you, you're making the project about you, whether you like or realise that or not. Your intro should draw people into the idea. When the papers want to know whose shirts you wear, as the song goes, they'll ask you, trust me.