A rather firey debate over at Politburo Diktat got me reminiscing about the good ol' days of USENET and talk.origins. It was there, and on the various related alt. groups, that I transformed from a bright and shiny newbie into the grizzled, obnoxious, sarcastic, shrike-like, unreasonable, argumentative, "last-word-in-before-I-die" bastard you all know and love. And I was just a junior member. In the time before the September that Never Ended, talk.origins old-timers could slice up a newbie creationist so quickly and so efficiently it would make a samurai take up gardening.

Which leads me (in my usual direct and concise way) to what I think is the best description of what, exactly, happened every September in those halcyon days, when sheltered fundamentalist teenagers jumped onto a forum meant to, in their bright and shiny minds, teach us all the error of our evolutionary ways:

We have seen now all the typical [creationist] exits and one highly unusual non-exit. The usuals:

1. Rush into the debate with all guns blazing (i.e. evolution can't be proved, the 2nd law argument, "macroevolution" has never been observed, there are gaps in the fossil record, etc., nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything). Have head handed to you. Whimper smugly about how mistreated you are. Leave.
2. Rush into the debate etc. Have head handed to you. Disappear without even a goodbye or a f**k you.
3. Rush into the debate etc. Have head handed to you. Claim that all your assertions are "common knowledge". Redirect followups so that they are never seen. Leave.
4. Rush into the debate etc. Have head handed to you. Continue to post sniping one liners (sometimes for years) without ever answering a single question or including a bit of content in your posts.

And the unusual one.

5. Rush into the debate etc. Have head handed to you. Some how wade through all the vitriol from both sides and decide that evolution might actually be _interesting_. Visit a library. Learn something. Continue to post but from a position of greater knowledge rather than continual, aggressive ignorance (not that the poster I am referring to, John Gonzalez, ever was aggressively ignorant. Remember, I am carefully speaking in generalities).

Anyway, one way or another they always leave. Kind of sad, really. Like losing a stupid yet well-loved pet.

Crusty USENETers... I do miss them so... *sniff*