"This is terrible. I totally disagree. In saying things like this you are effectively turning a blind eye to some of the main causal factors (of the scarcity of water in this case, which is very much due to the size of our demand on the resource, as well as a relative decline in rainfall)."

I am not turning a blind eye to it, I'm simply saying that it is not a financial consideration. There are financial considerations and there are non-financial ones, and both have to be taken into account. No one benefits if the financial considerations are misconstrued due to a lack of understanding of how to calculate them.

Why should every topic be subject to being dragged in whichever direction represents some individual's own agenda?

"Now Sylvia, surely by your standards your whole post is off-topic, as it really is quite removed from discussion on discounted cash flows. Yes?"

It's a problem that I had already noted. Posts remonstrating about other posts being off topic are themselves off topic, yet the alternative is to say nothing, which hardly has the desired outcome of maintaining on topic responses either. Short of allowing topic originators to delete offtopic postings, I see no solution.

By contrast, if you want to discuss sustainability issues, you have the option of creating your own thread for the purpose. You don't have to hijack the ones I've created. Doing the latter amounts to a stifling of debate.

Sylvia.

“…if you want to discuss sustainability issues, you have the option of creating your own thread for the purpose. You don't have to hijack the ones I've created. Doing the latter amounts to a stifling of debate.”

I have done nothing more than mention stuff that is relevant to your subject. The idea that your thread is being hijacked because someone dares to mention things that you hadn’t thought of or don’t like, is a bit rich to say the least.

You seem to consider population-related or sustainability-related or continuous-growth-related matters so peripheral to your subject as to be essentially irrelevant. This really is extraordinary. It seems that any mention of this is to you inappropriate.

Why can’t you simply address the points that are raised instead of branding them inappropriate? Isn’t this the essence of the OLO debating arena….. to discuss all this sort of stuff?

Sorry, but I have to completely reject your comments that anything I have written on ‘your’ threads has been inappropriate.

You have presumably noticed how many threads on OLO evolve, taking discussion away from the original intent. The moderators allow this to proceed. In fact, anything that is even remotely connected to a topic is allowed to stay posted. I agree with this approach. A broad perspective is good.

“Why should every topic be subject to being dragged in whichever direction represents some individual's own agenda?”

Perhaps it is just your perception that things are being “dragged” away from your narrow intended agenda. What do you expect? Of course thinking people are going to have different perspectives (agendas if you like).

You want to debate things… or perhaps you just want people to blithely agree with you. But you certainly don’t give them any room to move. Sorry, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. You’ve got to give anyone who responds the right to speak freely, and take things in their chosen direction. How you respond to that is your business, but to say that it is inappropriate for them to do so is just wrong, I’m afraid.

Hi Sylvia
I'm the first to admit that I know very little of the financial side and therefore I found your new info on discounted cashflow educational and interesting.

However, I do have to agree still with Ludwig.
I really think that almost everything has a connection with everything else and sometimes people just find it hard to focus on one little aspect out of a large range of possibly connected aspects.

I believe that if we would focus on the discounted cashflow topic only, there wouldn't be much left to say- as like in my case: you explained, I learned. Some asked questions, which you answered. I was misinformed about the solar panels so I learned about that as well.

If there is nothing else after that which we can discuss then this discussion was probably over at that point. Unless you come up with new suggestions what else we can discuss!

I don't really see that 'every topic' is 'being dragged in'.
I see it more as an enrichment of the discussion to talk about very closely related aspects.
I think the problem here is that for most people it is not natural to focus on such narrow topic in a conversation. When have you ever had a conversation on one narrow topic only without bringing in something new or fresh that relates to it?

People will always take the bigger picture, or broader topic into account.

Celiva,

It's probably true that this thread has run its course, and that the later off-topic postings have done little harm, but consider another thread I started

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=123

There is not a single on-topic response. OK, maybe that's because my argument was so compelling that no one feels the need to reply, but I think it's more likely that people have been put off by the volume of extraneous stuff.

There is no doubt that if one wants to *prevent* a discussion that might lead to a conclusion one doesn't like, then an effective tactic is to send the discussion off on a series of while goose chases, so that the central issue does not get debated.

I don't doubt that it's true that most people are not used to debating an issue within defined constraints, but that's something people really ought to learn to do. Otherwise we don't get debate - we just get conversation, or even just gossip.

Oh Sylvia, don't you get it?

"There is not a single on-topic response. OK, maybe that's because my argument was so compelling that no one feels the need to reply, but I think it's more likely that people have been put off by the volume of extraneous stuff."

Have you actually thought about the fact that no-one else is interested in a discussion that is policed like Nazi Germany?

Perhaps rather than offering a a compelling argument, your dictatorial attitude just puts people off.

Perhaps people just see a bigger picture than DCF. Perhaps...omigod...there is more to life than DCF. Perhaps... shock horror.... other people believe they have things of value to say related to the topic that don't necessarily fit within your parameters. Maybe people believe that your parameters are too narrow ... isn't that a valid part of discussion? I know its hard for you to believe, but perhaps you are the one with the problem.

Lighten up. Haven't you ever heard that rules are made to be broken?