Regarding OP
Precisely this statement used as justification for Theocracy aka the adversary against the age of Enlightenment. A true statement, but often abused by the fallacy of . . . (oh damnit what was the fallacy again) . . . Eg, “Philosophy is dangerous therefore when in doubt, avoid it.”
I like to think that . . . the same way that rationale is the result of creative brainstorming . . . therefore philosophy is the result of pseudophilosophy, science the result of ideas from pseudoscience. Yes it is raw, unfiltered. But it is the creative force which the elite must draw from in order to provide the filtered, “authoritative” patent inquiries that become its equivalent of sacred text. (What, did you think the “smart” published people with their sole name under the title think up all their material by themselves?)In other words . . .
Forums like this one should not be seen as the underdog for the “real work.” This here is the true frontier, the driving force of human progress. I suspect that people in the future will not look to the “ancient” philosophers of the 21st century in forms of published books, but in digital text. For every book that’s published, volumes of blogs and posts are churned out everywhere . . . like books, some of them are good, and some of them are just plain stupid.
Unfortunately for us, successful philosophers are not just good philosophers. They are also good capitalists. Yes, they come out with some written works. But they do so slowly, works that read even more slowly. They do so with an obsessive wit of caution. Putting a few simple ideas justified by a giant block of obvious claims and quotations. You can’t copyright an idea but you can copyright a published manuscript. That means if you churn out a bunch of really cool ideas on forums across the net, your contribution to society becomes superfluous and unmeasured, and therefore . . . essentially null and void in the bank. By refraining from contributing to the “world” knowledge that is the internet, you deny people the power to propagate the knowledge naturally . . . yet you potentially provide yourself a nice piece of polished work that you can publish and then take to the non-money legal tender bank.
Doubly unfortunately for us, philosophy is progressively becoming shit in the eyes of capitalism. Nobody cares why. Everyone cares how. The enlightenment freed humanity from the clutches of theocracy only to lead everyone down the clutches of technocracy. Really: Who cares how smart you are when you have a lot of nukes, and subscribe to a bit of logical positivism?
In light of this, to answer the title of the thread directly,
ILP posts are one of the dumbest thing you can do as a capitalist. They will suck your time away and leave you a penniless petty charlatan of intellectual appearance.
Spiritually . . . idealistically . . . the internet propagation of ideas like this (aka the partaking of high speed collective human thought) . . . is the way to “Know God” as seculiar humanists may envision it. And it is the way of reformation in political systems superior to the popular yet archaic pseudo-ballot pseudo-democracy.
You, philosophy posters, like so many dead philosophers before you, are the drivers of human thought that may one day have a plaque in your honor . . . but in your lifetime . . . will remain a (perhaps miserable) delinquent idiot that dies alone and poor.
Oh yeah. And why “I Love Philosophy” (perhaps aka: “I love the love of applied knowledge”?) Is it because all the good domains were taken or expensive?
So as follows-