As much information, insight and entertainment this forum provides, some things about its format and design have come to annoy me. Let me start by saying that I think one of the biggest weaknesses of this forum may be the Active Topics option at the top. It seems to me that some people may use this option just to see which topics are still alive. This option therefore makes it quite easy for some people to intervene in a thoughtful conversation with a rather thoughtless reaction. This observation about the "Active Topics" option may not be altogether true, but it is something that easily explains the prolific amount of responses made by individual members across a wide scope of threads. Of course, it just may be that this forum is so addictive.
But the problem that exists, nonetheless, is that some members are ennabled to make the most inane comments within an otherwise thoughtful thread. It's not that I am annoyed by the humor that I rather enjoy within any discussion, I am speaking particularly of the pseudo-thinkers on this board that make their sometimes esoteric, hyper-reductive, dishonest, or lazy attempts at intellect with stock arguments and affected poses to steady themselves on. I would like to make a distinction between these members and those sincerely curious and meek minds who have a genuine respect for knowledge and thought. But these are not the same people who will hijack a good thread with a dull dispute that mostly involves semantics and an unlearned, undisciplined style of cut-and-paste argument. The only solution to this, as I see it, is that we simply muster the self-control to refrain from responding to some members' abuse of a democratic forum.
Perhaps, though, I am just venting about the disdain for careful thought that seems so prevalent in some people's argumentation.