I inhabit OLO because it stimulates my thinking. It shows me how others are thinking, and what’s on in the world. There are some great thinkers write here, and they share their thoughts, usually but not always in a courteous manner.

It is a place where ideas can get floated, and either sink or swim, depending upon whose opinion is expressed. It does not matter about the spelling, or syntax, it’s the idea behind it that matters. It is a sort of cradle of democracy, where everyone can have a say. Onya OLO

For the learning, laughter and life Belly baby.

I have very limited interactions with adults day to day. OLO has provided me with an important balance and where before I never felt isolated I was surprised by how little I knew and just how separate I was from the world of grownups.

Why do I come back? Sometimes I never leave.[smile]

Possibly an adiction.

A chance to talk about topics which few amongst those I know in my day to day life want to bother with, where the many sides of a topic can be put and heard in some comfort (few dinner parties could cope with the division of opinion which flourishes here).

A chance to learn in an interactive manner, where idea's go back and forwards rather than just being an authors one directional opinion. I learn from books, articles, documentaries etc but none of them generally have the to and fro challenges that discussion here creates.

It's a place where I can put my views without being silenced or sidelined by the more powerful, the more popular or the more ruthless. That's not something we should take for granted.

R0bert

I have to find something to do when at work

and I consider allowing others to share the insight of my views a civic duty.

Nietzsche said it the best

"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"

I am bored at work.

Sometimes any distraction beats actually doing work. As to those that 'inhabit' OLO (ie those that have no life and post on the weekends in their own time when they're not being paid) I can only guess they are missing something in their lives. (As am I in missing a stimulating, challenging and rewarding job.)

I pity them and enjoy jokes at their expense. I study them and their reactions to my pokes and prods in the way a child pokes and prods at a dead carcass.

That they think it's somehow shameful to be childish, add no value to a discussion and take such entertainment at the expense of others, just makes it that much more entertaining.

'And I consider allowing others to share the insight of my views a civic duty.'

Oh Col, you just work on a higher plane than the average OLO poster.