The age thing kind of irks me also. I can think of several people on this forum who are many years younger than I but I would be far more inclined to trust their opinion on most matters. It doesn't make one person's opinion consistently more or less valid than anothers.
I think ampersandwitch's initial post was over-dramatic and certainly over-abusive but there's no real reason to be caustic about it.
Dan, she has a point about the 17 thing. You know fairly well that a lot of the most well thought posters are around that age (ruyi and clara for example).
You two should know better because I pretty much explained this all in gabbly, I'm disappointed in you guys. Read on.
Get over yourself.
I wasn't being petulant because you're an admin, but rather, called me seventeen, and therefore, somehow inferior to the other boarders here. I would take offense to anybody who did that, not just a mod. I guess I'm kind of beating a dead horse here, especially because I've been busy and not able to respond to what you've said, but being accused additionally of being one of the "MODS R FSHISTS LUKLZ!" somehow made me very indignant.
That "get over yourself" was aimed at Flaming Ostrich, that was pretty clear because the rest of my post was in response to him, and he was the one who was attacking me because I dared take an opposing viewpoint and my continued attacks on his argument were obviously some sort of oppression. They had nothing to do with each other and that he managed to equate them is either extremely self-centered, or insulting, because he is implying that I would only attack his argument from a position of power and that they therefor couldn't stand on their own. Anyone should see through that ploy.
I dislike having to parse this out, but I was warned I'd have to explain this, so I'm not surprised. I mentioned your age in that first post because in terms of brain development, human beings are not wired to think of the world beyond them until their early twenties. Until then, people are extremely self-centered beings, who care to only do what benefits them in some way, since they're the center of the universe in their mind. You may think you don't act or this way, but I guarantee you do.
What this means is not that I was calling you inferior, but that I was calling you a
hypocrite, and I stand by that.
Now, Flaming Ostrich's
ideas are incredibly naive, simplistic, and childish. I mentioned his age because I was giving him the benefit of the doubt. If someone over the age of say 22 had an understanding of world on the level that he does, then that person would be more or less considered stupid, or be seen as living in a fantasy world of some sort. That he is seventeen and has that worldview is understandable, but it also means that his ideas are incredibly naive, simplistic, and childish.