What do forum discussions do for you, and what do you like about them?

[Jim]

1. What do you like about forum discussions?
2. What good do you think forum discussions might be doing for you, how do you think they might be benefiting you, not only while you’re reading and posting, but also in their effects on the rest of your life?
3. How would you like to think others might benefit from what you do in the forums?
(added in an edit)
4. Do you have any ideas about the best possibilities in Internet discussions, what people could be doing in Internet discussions, for any purposes that seem good to you?

 

[SalixIncendium]

1. What do you like about forum discussions?

Many people think through what to say before they say it. Unfortunately, this doesn't hold true for everyone. But one learns which people have something to say and which ones just have to say something.

2. What good do you think forum discussions might be doing for you, how do you think they might be benefiting you, not only while you’re reading and posting, but also in their effects on the rest of your life?

I learn from them. I learn more about the people on the forum, what makes them tick, and about the world around me.

3. How would you like to think others might benefit from what you do in the forums?

There's always a chance someone might take something away from one of my usually incoherent and insufferable ramblings.

 

[PureX]

I have a brain that needs to be occupied, to be happy. And it easily gets bored and frustrated with the shallow entertainment that our culture generally offers us for that purpose.

But this site is not 'selling entertainment', so it allows for weird and unusual content that our culture of commercial commodification would not normally tolerate. So that content shows up here that would not show up elsewhere. And that tends to keep my mind entertained in the fashion that it likes.

 

[David T]

1. What do you like about forum discussions?
2. What good do you think forum discussions might be doing for you, how do you think they might be benefiting you, not only while you’re reading and posting, but also in their effects on the rest of your life?
3. How would you like to think others might benefit from what you do in the forums?

1.Rapid filtering thoughts
2. Helps me to undertand certain aspects of thinking. Its helped me to form a response. A work always in process. Like art is art.
3. Well maybe the simplist is maybe just maybe we dont have something right here in our agnosticism our belief and non belief. Thats a tricky to convey which i usually say breathing greatly underappreciated.

 

[Jim]

1. Most of all I like the new ideas that I get from trying to understand what other people are thinking. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Maybe like when I was a child, at an amusement park or a science museum. Also, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, or playing an adventure puzzle video game. I keep learning new ways of thinking, and seeing new possibilities, and finding answers to questions that I’ve been asking myself for years. Also, there are people whose company I enjoy a lot, and some things that happen that are fun to watch. Also, I like the encouragement I get sometimes, and the encouragement that I see others getting sometimes

2. I can’t think of any specific examples, but I’m thinking that the ideas and encouragement that I get here will help me in all of my life, in everything I’m trying to do, and in my enjoyment of life. I’m especially excited now about what might happen in my relationship with nature, and with people as part of nature.

3. I would like to think that people get some ideas and encouragement from me sometimes, and feel cheered and refreshed sometimes from their conversations with me or from reading my posts.

 

[Revoltingest]

Discussions entertain me, & give me pleasure when I
can persuade someone to be friendlier to my views.
And then there's the money.

 

[Jim]

4. The possibilities that I’ve been thinking of are for people to get ideas and encouragement from each other, for whatever good each person is doing and hoping to do, online and offline. I thought maybe some people might have some other ideas.

Some other things I sometimes see happening in Internet discussions, that I like:
- Social interaction, community life and community service.
- Recreational activities.
- Self development.
- People promoting their ideas and interests in healthy ways.

I see now that debating can serve all those purposes.

Any other ideas, anyone?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

1. Most of all I like the new ideas that I get from trying to understand what other people are thinking. I don’t know how to describe the feeling. Maybe like when I was a child, at an amusement park or a science museum. Also, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, or playing an adventure puzzle video game. I keep learning new ways of thinking, and seeing new possibilities, and finding answers to questions that I’ve been asking myself for years. Also, there are people whose company I enjoy a lot, and some things that happen that are fun to watch. Also, I like the encouragement I get sometimes, and the encouragement that I see others getting sometimes.

You are describing in part the effect of flow in psychology (google it, faster than me linking correct links) and the feeling of that it "clicks" in your brain; i.e. the deep feeling that it makes sense. There is more, but that is a part of it.
The other part is that you are expanding your model of the landscape and your and everybody else's part in the landscape; i.e. nature or if you like God is nature and you worship God and our part in it by using your brain in a positive way.

2. I can’t think of any specific examples, but I’m thinking that the ideas and encouragement that I get here will help me in all of my life, in everything I’m trying to do, and in my enjoyment of life. I’m especially excited now about what might happen in my relationship with nature, and with people as part of nature.

You are in nature and a part of nature. See above for flow, that is positive nature in you.

3. I would like to think that people get some ideas and encouragement from me sometimes, and feel cheered and refreshed sometimes from their conversations with me or from reading my posts.

You have brought joy in my life.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

4. The possibilities that I’ve been thinking of are for people to get ideas and encouragement from each other, for whatever good each person is doing and hoping to do, online and offline. I thought maybe some people might have some other ideas.

Some other things I sometimes see happening in Internet discussions, that I like:
- Social interaction, community life and community service.
- Recreational activities.
- Self development.
- People promoting their ideas and interests in healthy ways.

I see now that debating can serve all those purposes.

Any other ideas, anyone?

In other words that over the vast impersonal "divide" of being behind 2 different screens, 2 humans can "touch" each other as humans.

 

[Martin]

A lot of it is entertainment, but occasionally I learn something really useful/interesting.

 

[Twilight Hue]

It's for the element of entertainment, playing around with the noodle in your head, and having a general inquisitive disposition on various subjects of the pros and cons of whatever it is you're talking or debating about.