Josh Cryer wrote:ravingdave, not get rid of it just take it out of "View new posts since last visit." If you were to go in to "General" you would find unread topics happily highlighted.
(I personally never use this feature anyway, I go by the icons.)
And MSimon, if there were a no-politics rule then you'd have a far more diverse array of individuals. You just wouldn't know that you're surrounded by people who disagree with you politically. On my site we have every spectrum. So glad I banned politics.
That is why I keep two (well more actually) blogs.
IEC Fusion Tech and
Power and Control.
But as you may or may not be aware the whole Energy question (not to mention Polywell) is in part political.
And the arguments are hard. No quarter asked or given. Which is how the best engineering is done.
Now this site was set up by engineers. It is in the main for scientists and engineers. The fact that guys off the street have a hard time here is really not a concern. It serves the purpose of the original group.
And FWIW Joe and I are not very close politically. And yet our working relationship is more than cordial and he trusts my judgment. But he is an engineer.
And note: politics is in part an engineering problem (resources, and economics) and in part an allocation problem.
The question is what allocation method expands resources at the fastest rate? The political question is how much of the future do we want to sacrifice for the present? And then there is the question of liberty.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it. Thomas Jefferson
The more government allocates resources the less the liberty. And then there is the information question. No absolute rule handed down from on high can account for the information available to 300 million individuals. We see this all the time in law. The system produces injustice to varying degrees. Which is why we have things like commutation and pardon. The system itself admits that rules can't cover all situations.
So what happens when government rules control economics? Corruption. Because such a system without corruption grinds to a halt.