2023 - Scholars is Back Online

[James]

Nope, it was the same device as the one I logged onto (my Mac Air).

I don't want to jinx it by saying it feels like it's becoming more frequent... but...

Edit: No logout this time.

For whatever it is worth, it doesn’t make sense for it to become more frequent... so at least that ought not to be an issue. But clearly there is something that is giving folks some undue fuss... :/

[Shortyafter]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to say that I was a 13-14 year old kid using these forums and spouting off the conservative / Republican points of view that I learned from my father. Eg: Anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-Iraq war, pro-guns, etc. Oh, and I was also religious.

I'm not gonna say I'm a Democrat now, actually I think both parties suck. But thanks to the people in the "Current Affairs" - one guy I will always remember is lessthanpleased - I literally stopped believing in Christianity and all of my political views changed.

I feel like you guys roughed me up a little bit I mean I was basically a kid lol. But I'm better off for it. I occasionally check back in here to see if it's still around and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's back. My password is even the same after all these years (so much for security!)

Anyway this place was literally a formative part of my life lol so thanks for that and regards to everyone and to the owners of the site.

[James]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to say that I was a 13-14 year old kid using these forums and spouting off the conservative / Republican points of view that I learned from my father. Eg: Anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-Iraq war, pro-guns, etc. Oh, and I was also religious.

I'm not gonna say I'm a Democrat now, actually I think both parties suck. But thanks to the people in the "Current Affairs" - one guy I will always remember is lessthanpleased - I literally stopped believing in Christianity and all of my political views changed.

I feel like you guys roughed me up a little bit I mean I was basically a kid lol. But I'm better off for it. I occasionally check back in here to see if it's still around and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's back. My password is even the same after all these years (so much for security!)

Anyway this place was literally a formative part of my life lol so thanks for that and regards to everyone and to the owners of the site.

Welcome back! Thanks for popping in. It gave me a bit of a chuckle as I, of course, remember well all of those discussions. Even though you were around 13-14 many of us were 18-30s or so. My how the time has flown.

Good ol’ lessthanpleased. I would not imagine he checks in much at the moment, but I’m still in contact with him. Rest assured that he is still a familiar character relative to context that those years gone by may lend.

I hope the result of sticking around was well on the side of being a net positive!

And yep! Same ol’ passwords from those days long gone by. But modern security for code and encryption. ’Course, that won’t help a whole lot for folks who lost their shared passwords in third-party data breeches and the like, so there are bound to be some compromised email/password combinations. Makes me wonder if anyone is trying to use them (e.g. to spam from an old account in message boards).

[Shortyafter]

Hi guys,

I just wanted to say that I was a 13-14 year old kid using these forums and spouting off the conservative / Republican points of view that I learned from my father. Eg: Anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-Iraq war, pro-guns, etc. Oh, and I was also religious.

I'm not gonna say I'm a Democrat now, actually I think both parties suck. But thanks to the people in the "Current Affairs" - one guy I will always remember is lessthanpleased - I literally stopped believing in Christianity and all of my political views changed.

I feel like you guys roughed me up a little bit I mean I was basically a kid lol. But I'm better off for it. I occasionally check back in here to see if it's still around and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's back. My password is even the same after all these years (so much for security!)

Anyway this place was literally a formative part of my life lol so thanks for that and regards to everyone and to the owners of the site.

Welcome back! Thanks for popping in. It gave me a bit of a chuckle as I, of course, remember well all of those discussions. Even though you were around 13-14 many of us were 18-30s or so. My how the time has flown.

Good ol’ lessthanpleased. I would not imagine he checks in much at the moment, but I’m still in contact with him. Rest assured that he is still a familiar character relative to context that those years gone by may lend.

I hope the result of sticking around was well on the side of being a net positive!

And yep! Same ol’ passwords from those days long gone by. But modern security for code and encryption. ’Course, that won’t help a whole lot for folks who lost their shared passwords in third-party data breeches and the like, so there are bound to be some compromised email/password combinations. Makes me wonder if anyone is trying to use them (e.g. to spam from an old account in message boards).

Thanks James! I'm glad you remember me. No worries, it was definitely a net positive. The thing is I was not really sharing my opinion, I was sharing the opinion I had been "indoctrinated" with in my family. Not that they were a particular bad case, but I took what I learned from them at their word (plus whatever I learned at church every Sunday). You guys helped me see that a lot of what I learned wasn't true. Shit, it was a hell of a lot more useful than most of what I learned in school. I knew you guys were all older but it must have been hilarious for someone in their 30s talking to 13 year old about that stuff, lol. I'm 31 now.

If you talk to lessthanpleased send him my regards.

I will certainly pop in every now and then! Thanks for keeping up the site.

[James]

Thanks James! I'm glad you remember me. No worries, it was definitely a net positive. The thing is I was not really sharing my opinion, I was sharing the opinion I had been "indoctrinated" with in my family. Not that they were a particular bad case, but I took what I learned from them at their word (plus whatever I learned at church every Sunday). You guys helped me see that a lot of what I learned wasn't true. Shit, it was a hell of a lot more useful than most of what I learned in school. I knew you guys were all older but it must have been hilarious for someone in their 30s talking to 13 year old about that stuff, lol. I'm 31 now.

If you talk to lessthanpleased send him my regards.

I will certainly pop in every now and then! Thanks for keeping up the site.

It’s kind of fun to think about this. You were not the only ~13-year-old in the forum then (of course) and there were others to come and go over the years (some of whom stuck around quite some time, as might be imagined). I remember quite well that, broadly, the younger members in the forum were highly appreciated and generally enjoyed from a perspective of running the forum. It seemed like most who engaged at all beyond the more basic gaming threads were mature beyond their years, and I think our younger members broadly added to the community.

I sincerely appreciated that younger members were interested in this content.

On the KMA side, I also got some really lovely email and correspondence from parents of kiddos that enriched the whole endeavor. I remember one, from a mother, who was thanking me for the website (really the sum of the community in practice) for taking their rather anti-book, anti-learning kiddo and turning them on to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which, after playing some games, and learning about, they became interested in reading and understanding, leading to, what I imagine, was some interesting family reading nights! This felt like making a positive difference in the world.

31 now! Good grief, the time that has passed.

As an aside, I grew up in a household where my political education came from Talk Radio, running 24/7 in the background. I still remember just assuming everything I was hearing was honest—imagining that it would not be okay to lie on the radio—and I also remember my surprise the first time I became really skeptical of something Rush Limbaugh said and decided to hop on to the ol’ internet and double-check for accuracy, turning up that he had clearly, and very deliberately, taken something out of context to mislead listeners.

[Jordan]

When I started posting here I was like 15, and I was a completely ignorant idiot for sure. I don't even want to go back and read some old posts. I do think this forum, and debating with other people, and learning I was wrong about many things, helped to improve critical thinking just a bit. I'm no expert still. Sadly I never developed any linguistic competence to be able to really plumb the depths of Chinese history, but I do still enjoy reading about it here and there at the age of 33.